Necessary Masque
by Cheezey
Summary: Follow-up to "Act of War". The web of deception tangles more tightly as Lotor keeps his word to Allura, and the upper hand against his enemies. LotorXAllura, T rating for language.
1. Chapter 1

Necessary Masque

Part One

By Cheezey

Thick clouds in the sky above Doom's city of divinity, Darhin-Kal, obscured any natural nighttime light of celestial bodies in the heavens, leaving it lit for travelers only by the nine forbidding temples that comprised the world's center of worship. It was within a spire-shaped temple at the city's southernmost point that Commander Cossack the Terrible descended a dark stone staircase leading to the sacrificial altar of Nys'athar, Doom's goddess of intrigue, subterfuge, and deception. He carried items of ritual importance in each hand. In the right was a cluster of dried herbs, still-green stalks with tiny leaves and once-purple flowers whose petals had become powdery and were now more the color of ink than their natural vibrant violet. In the left, he clutched a medal.

The medal was not one of his, nor had it been awarded to any Doom soldier. Instead it had once belonged to an enemy that Cossack had conquered, the deposed General Kruger of planet Oron. Although officially the conquest of Oron was categorized as a failure due to Voltron, Cossack himself considered the early part of that mission among his victories. Despite how it had turned out, he was still proud of the way he had duped the fool general into severing political ties with the Voltron Force, which had enabled Doom to take over the weapon-rich world for a short time. Cossack had enjoyed a brief reign as the self-proclaimed emperor of Oron, and when he enslaved Kruger, he had taken the general's medal as a token of his victory. Unfortunately when Voltron came back even though Kruger had terminated their alliance—probably against Galaxy Alliance protocol, though Cossack was no expert on that—his victory had proven short-lived. Still, up until that point the mission was a fond memory of Cossack's, and it was his firm belief that the sacrifice he had made to Nys'athar before embarking on that mission was the key to why that aspect had gone so smoothly.

_I definitely should've stopped by to kiss up to Athgar that day too; maybe then Voltron wouldn't have kicked my robeast's ass when he broke his own rules and came back,_ Cossack mused as he descended the final step, and strode into the heart of Nys'athar's sacrificial chamber.

"Fleet Commander Cossack the Terrible," a sly voice that was not distinctly male or female, belonging to the cleric tending the chamber, greeted him. "To what does the goddess owe the pleasure of your visit this evening?"

Cossack approached the altar, a diamond-shaped onyx slab inlaid with a lapis lazuli tracing of the goddess' skull crest set upon a three-tiered dais. Two ever-lit fires burned inside the carving's eyes, emitting a subtle fragrance from the oil used to keep them going. The carving's mouth was open, its inside concave and shaped like a bowl. The mouth was where one placed sacrifices during a prayer. The dark mouth was empty, indicating that Nys'athar was open to accept and hungry for whatever offerings mortals wished to present to her.

"I need the goddess' help, big-time, with something I've been asked to pull off," Cossack candidly told the cleric, whose appearance was just as androgynous as the voice. The altar-keeper wore a loose floor-length robe of midnight blue that showed only that he or she was leanly built, without a hint of telltale curves or musculature that might have given away his or her gender. The robe covered the entire body save the face, neck, and hands, the last of which were covered with satin black gloves. The cleric wore several rings forged from various metals and stones bearing religious symbols specific to Nys'athar and Darhin-Kal atop gloved fingers, as well as a silver diamond-shaped medallion around the neck that reflected the light of the altar's fires. The hair and facial features of Nys'athar's prayer receiver, named Penthen, were equally ambiguous and one could make an equally strong argument that they belonged to a stern woman as they could that they belonged to a mildly effeminate Doomite man.

"Indeed?" Penthen's golden eyes, heavily lined with black metallic ritualistic paint, fixed first upon the commander and then upon the objects in his hands. "It's a matter of great secrecy and urgency, then?"

Cossack nodded and offered a hopeful smile. "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies."

Used to such ambiguous responses in that line of work, Penthen smiled back in tandem and gestured to the altar. "Then pray with all your spirit and leave an appropriate prize, child of Elichi."

Nodding back to the cleric, Cossack dropped half of the dried herb in one eye fire and the remainder in the other, and then closed his eyes and lowered his head in silent prayer. As the herb burned, a sweet smoke filtered into the air that in a stronger concentration would be intoxicating. Penthen recited a soft chant to Nys'athar, and once the invocation was finished, Cossack placed Kruger's medal into the altar's open mouth in a gesture of reverence, with a bowed head and closed eyes, as was the custom. As he let go, Cossack felt a twinge of sadness at having to part with that favored souvenir, but he supposed that was why the rite was called "sacrifice" after all. Giving something that the goddess would not only appreciate but that was also important to him showed devoutness and devotion to his goal, far more than presenting something just swiped from his little brother when he was not looking in a last-ditch effort. Cossack was not taking chances with this prayer. He needed all the help he could get, and he figured that something the goddess had once previously helped him acquire would go far in earning her favor and hopefully ensure his success.

Penthen stood with outstretched arms at the opposite end of the diamond from Cossack and inhaled the smoke of the burning sacrificial herb deeply. The cleric's eyes closed for a moment, and then reopened as the energies of the astral and worldly realms synchronized. "The medal of the high general of Oron?" the impressed Penthen said, first looking at the sacrifice in the mouth and then back at Cossack. "The goddess is most pleased. She greatly enjoyed watching you convince a self-important human that the cherished Alliance hero Voltron was the 'bad guy' and we 'wicked' ones had their best interests at heart."

Cossack looked up and beamed with pride. "Thanks! It was a fun day. At least until you-know-who showed up anyway."

"Mmmm," Penthen murmured in agreement before reciting another chant. The sacrificial smoke continued to waft as silence fell over the chamber, and Cossack waited with increasing anticipation for the result of the cleric's communion with the divine. After what felt like quite a while but was in reality less than a minute, a sly smile spread across Penthen's features.

"Good news I hope?" Cossack asked.

Penthen nodded. "Nys'athar gives you her fullest blessing. Leave with confidence, Commander. The veil of secrecy will not fall from your charge."

Feeling as though a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders, a broad grin spread across Cossack's face upon receiving the divine thumbs-up, and he gave the cleric a heartfelt bow of gratitude. "Thanks!" He had already come up with what he thought would be a decent plan for the task posed to him—hiding the identity of the supposedly-executed-but-had-to-be-kept-alive-and-safe-for-Lotor's-wife Voltron force prisoner Hunk—but now that he knew that the goddess of deception also knew and approved of his scheme, he felt far more confident about putting it into action.

"You're most welcome," Penthen told Cossack, and just as the commander turned to leave, added with a raised brow, "You know, it has been some time since we—that is, the loyal acolytes of Nys'athar—have had some of that fine _special _vintage of Aldar'ach peach wine. Perhaps a meager donation to the temple would encourage others in the order to… shall we say, put in an extra good word for you and your family with the goddess as well, Commander?"

The wine the cleric referred to was a home-brew that his father had the recipe for but did not make to sell. Although a cask of it would fetch an amazing price on the open market given that it had the unique property of being a powerful aphrodisiac as well as a potent intoxicant and fine complement to a tasty dessert, Cossack's father Lord Tadack wisely realized that some things had the most inherent value as a personal currency with which to call in favors, and as a result kept the formula closely guarded. The few on Doom that knew the peach wine's sordid secret paid handsomely for it and the many that did not—for Cossack's parents also sold a similarly-flavored peach wine without that property—were easily manipulated, blackmailed, or both after having it slipped to them on the sly.

Knowing full well what Penthen was angling at, Cossack flashed a knowing smile in response. "You got it!" He then gave a jovial wave in parting and ascended the stairs to see to his task.

* * *

The hour was very late when Sven, Romelle, and the rest of the refugees from the ruined Castle Pollux reached the town nearest their escape route. Earlier that evening Sven and one of the youths among their group had ventured there alone on foot, and they had been relieved to find the town devoid of any Doom soldier presence. They had also received the mixed news regarding the fate of the fallen castle and those that had remained behind. Sven's heart sank to hear of the destruction, lost lives, and those presumed missing or dead—especially Hunk—and while he was glad that Bandor had survived, the news that he was in critical condition in a Galaxy Alliance hospital facility was still ominous. He was relieved that Lance managed to hold on to the red lion and that it, with help from Keith and friends from the Galaxy Alliance, had successfully defeated the robeast and driven off Lotor's invasion. Still, Sven knew it was only a matter of time before another attack came and even with Alliance protection, they were not in any position to deal with it. He tried not to dwell on the fate that awaited Hunk, although the memories of what he had endured as a prisoner on Doom haunted him. Sven knew all too well what horrors his friend might endure before, the heavens forbid, Lotor made good on his threat to kill him if the red lion was not surrendered.

Sven and his companion borrowed simple transportation consisting of some horses and a small hover vehicle from one of the local farmers, and took them along with some food and drink to where the rest of the party still hid in the trees. From there they rounded everyone up and took them into the town, where several of the locals offered them food, shelter, support, and heartfelt condolences for what they had lost. During the ride Sven updated Romelle with all of the news he had been given, and the two of them stayed together alone the remainder of the night in a loft above the town's tavern, courtesy of the barkeep who had heartily refused Romelle's insistent promise to pay him once she was in a position to do so.

They slept well considering all that they had been through, mostly because they were exhausted and drained and their bodies demanded it. Sven's slumber was deeper and lasted longer than Romelle's however, and when he woke up he found himself alone. When he went downstairs, the barkeep offered him something to eat and let him know that Romelle had left over an hour prior and had not returned. Knowing the princess as well as he did, Sven figured that she would not be able to lay low or stay idle long with all the responsibility that rested on her, no matter how much her psyche might have needed the rest. Sure enough, he discovered when he met up with some others from the castle that Romelle had been with them earlier, but had since left to "do some thinking" on her own.

After some asking around, he eventually found her sitting alone on a stone bench in the town's cemetery, a peaceful little cove bordered by flowering willow-like trees. She looked up when he approached, her eyes reddened and the circles beneath them pronounced from stress and grief. "It's not like the cemetery for the royal family. That was open, on the hills," she said softly, her eyes falling upon a nearby white marker in the shape of a cross. "But it was peaceful too, and at least they, like these souls, can rest." Romelle closed her eyes, nodding her head downward. "Avok, lost at sea, wasn't so lucky. My father…"

"Romelle—" Sven put a hand on her shoulder as her words died, but she resumed speaking before he could say any more.

"And now Bandor too." Her hands crumpled into fists. "I've had my whole family taken from me, all by the same man, and none of them even get the dignity of peace."

"Bandor isn't gone yet," Sven reassured her, and sat down beside her on the bench. "From what I heard, there's a good chance he could recover. Doctors can do amazing things, and he's in good hands. When we get back and get a chance to talk to the Alliance—"

"Which we have to do soon," Romelle interjected firmly. "The people need to know that their leaders haven't abandoned them or all been lost." Her eyes narrowed. "Lotor needs to know that too. I won't let that bastard have the satisfaction of thinking he's won and broken Pollux. Not after all he's done. I _won't _let him win. I'll sooner die."

He knew from the fire in her tone that she was not being melodramatic; her hatred for Lotor did burn that deeply. He did not blame her in the least for the sentiment, although inwardly he cringed at her choice of words given recent events. He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. "You shouldn't talk like that. Pollux needs you more than ever."

Romelle let out a heavy sigh. "I know. I barely know where to start, except that we have to get back to the castle—or what's left of it—and let the Galaxy Alliance know that we survived, and see what help they can give us."

Sven nodded in agreement. "The others are still tired and need their rest, but I'll go with you."

"I know you will," Romelle said with a wan smile. "I already asked some of the others to gather some more emergency supplies and equipment and meet in the town square in a few hours. That'll give everyone time to regroup and rest a little and maybe get some volunteers from town. I asked the ones who escaped with us to stay here—like you said, they need the rest."

"And you don't?" Sven queried somewhat playfully, but also with genuine concern.

"I don't have the luxury of that right now." She took his hand and met his gaze with a fond look. "Besides, I have what gives me strength right here."

Looking back into her troubled blue eyes, Sven found his heart warmed and aching at the same time. It made him happy beyond words to know Romelle felt so strongly for him, but it hurt so badly to know that there was so little he could do to ease her troubles aside from simply being there for her as best he could. "Romelle…"

"I mean it, Sven." She gave his hand an affectionate squeeze. "That's why… that's why, before we go back to the castle, I want you to come inside with me." She stood up, still holding his hand, and he joined her side with a puzzled look on his face.

"Into the chapel? You want me to pray with you, for your brother and Hunk and the others?"

A determined smile crossed her lips. "Yes, that would be nice, but actually," she paused for a moment, considering her words, and then simply came out and said it. "I want to marry you, Sven. Right here, right now."

Sven's eyes grew wide as saucers, and he looked back at her in complete shock. "Marry you? I… I mean, you know that I love you, Romelle, and that you'd want to means more than I could say…" His voice trailed off as he looked away for a moment, sorting through the whirlpool of emotion that her impromptu proposal had stirred. "But marry you now? You're the princess. You'd marry a common man like me? I'm not royalty or nobility, just a Galaxy Alliance space explorer…"

"You're just as noble as any prince, and have more nobility in your little toe than some princes I could mention!" Romelle asserted, almost shaking his hand with her impassioned words. "And if anyone on Pollux doesn't like it, they can stuff it! I love you, Sven. I love you and if I learned anything from this whole mess it's to not take what you love for granted." Her eyes welled up with fresh tears. "Not when you could lose them in an instant, just like that. I won't lose you, Sven, not without making what time I've got with you count for all it's worth."

His lip trembling with the rush of feeling her outpouring of emotion stirred, Sven pulled his beloved princess into a tight embrace. "I love you too, Romelle. You mean the universe to me."

She looked intently into his eyes. "Then let's make it official. Now."

A smile that came from the very depths of his soul lit up his face as he realized that the very thing he only dared imagine in his most private, cherished moments was coming true. "Let's go," he said, and met her lips in an ardent kiss.

* * *

The Castle of Lions' scanner alert buzzed, indicating the presence of a ship in the fortress' vicinity. Coran frowned with concern when he saw that the craft was a ship from planet Doom, heading straight for the castle. He had a guard summon Princess Allura immediately, and within moments of her arrival, Pidge and their less-than-thrilled Doom houseguest, the witch Haggar, joined them as well.

"Princess," Coran asked Allura, "did Lotor say anything to you about returning this soon?" He gestured to the monitor. "It seems that we have an unexpected visitor from planet Doom."

Allura eyed the screen curiously. "No, he didn't say anything to me about it. When I talked to him, I had the impression that he had to stay on Doom until things were straightened out with," a fleeting frown crossed her features as she finished her sentence, "with the lion situation."

"Me neither," Haggar volunteered, "but then Lotor often does whatever he pleases and tells everyone else later."

Coran's frown deepened; the witch's remark only added to his unease with the situation, but Allura remained calm. "I'm sure it's not an attack. If it's not Lotor himself, maybe it's someone here to talk to us about rebuilding plans, or a diplomat."

"Now _that_ would make me happy," Haggar said, and picked up Coba, who had been rubbing against her robe at her feet. "A diplomat here would mean I could go home to my lab and be somewhere that Kitty can actually eat the mice without causing a political incident."

"And you going home would make lots of people happy," Pidge quipped.

The witch's eyes narrowed and she sneered at the former green lion pilot. "Don't like having me around, do you?"

Pidge flashed her a false, cheesy smile. "Not so much me as Nanny and others I could mention," he thumbed in Coran's direction, "but now that you bring it up…"

"Hah," Haggar cackled. "I assure you, the feeling is mutual."

Allura ended the squabble by walking over to the console herself and entering a hailing frequency. "We aren't going to find out who it is by just standing around talking about it," she said before addressing the ship. "Castle of Lions to ship from planet Doom. Please come in."

The visage of a light blue-skinned Doom soldier in an admiral's armor with a large nose and wide jaw appeared on the screen. "Admiral Yaklitz of battleship _Zithkar-Ven_ of Doom responding, Castle of Lions. Nice to see you on friendly terms." His tone was pleasant and nonchalant.

The moment she heard the name, Haggar recognized the face of their visitor. Although Cossack's fleet friends were hardly her social cup of witch's brew, it was impossible to work with the commander for any length of time and not be subjected to his rambling anecdotes of his off-duty escapades with his friends, including the admiral on the screen. "Did Cossack send you?"

"Yep, at the request of Prince Lotor," Yaklitz confirmed. "I'm supposed to pick up Princess Allura and take her to Doom for a necessary political appearance with her husband."

Frowning, Allura asked, "A political appearance?"

"I suspect you're expected to present some sort of solidified front with Prince Lotor, most likely in regard to the issue of the red lion, now that the deadline has passed," Coran said.

Yaklitz confirmed Coran's statement with a nod. "It's important that the Drule Council gets the right impression with this whole brouhaha. Commander Cossack was told to see to it that you get to Doom pronto, your highness, and he put me on the job." He gave a cocky smile that was intended to be reassuring, although the uneasy expression on Allura's face made it clear that it missed the mark as he pressed on. "Cossack and I go way back. You can trust me."

"I see." Allura looked away thoughtfully, not so much put off at the until-recently strange notion of trusting anyone from Doom, but rather at the idea of being asked to participate in the upcoming spectacle involving her friends. Though she believed Lotor when he had said that Hunk would not be harmed, it did not sit well with her at all to actively take part in a charade that would lead others, including people she cared very much about, to believe that he was being executed. "I suppose Lotor didn't come himself because he couldn't leave?"

Admiral Yaklitz nodded again. "Yup. That's the deal, your highness. We should head back as soon as possible, but if you really need it, I can give you a little while to get ready and get your things."

Allura sighed. "I guess I don't have a choice, do I? I'll be ready in a few minutes." She turned to Coran. "Let Nanny know, please. I don't want her to worry… at least not any more than I know she will just with me going to Doom in the first place."

Coran gave a slow nod of assent. "I'll tell her."

Pidge shifted his gaze from the view screen to Allura. "Don't keep us waiting on what happens. I want to know how Hunk is and that he really is safe."

"I know, and I'll tell you as soon as I can when I find out. I promise," Allura said sincerely.

Straightening where she stood, Haggar took firm hold of her staff. "Well I don't need any extra time to get ready. I'm more than ready to leave this place. I'll be right aboard."

Yaklitz gave Haggar a sheepish look and cut her off as she shifted Coba in her arms to a more optimal position for travel. "Uh, sorry Witch Haggar," he said hesitantly, "but my orders don't include bringing you along. I'm only supposed to take Princess Allura back, not you."

"What?" Her warty face contorted into a particularly ugly expression of irritation.

The witch's dangerous look, coupled with her reputation, was enough to make Yaklitz shift in his seat even from the relative safety of being on the opposite end of a view screen. "Cossack said you stay. Both Prince Lotor and King Zarkon's orders. Protecting their interests and all that."

"Protecting their interests," Haggar repeated, her glower deepening. Although she did not doubt that was the truth, she could not help but suspect that the decision of her peers on Doom for her to stay was quite deliberate, and that they found some sort of snide humor in it knowing how she detested social missions when there were any number of high ranking military officers that could patrol Arus in her stead. She blamed Merla, although unbeknownst to her it was not the pink-haired queen but Zarkon himself who had insisted, finding the idea both beneficial—as he could trust Haggar—and humorous in a twisted way. "Fine," she said sourly after a moment. "Whatever."

"Great," the equally enthused Pidge echoed.

"As you say." Coran's tone remained politically correct and concise, but there was no hiding the displeased edge to it.

Allura offered a conciliatory look to her friends, and then started for the door. "Hopefully it won't take long." She turned toward Yaklitz on the screen. "I won't hold you up. I'll be right there." With a nod of goodbye to the others, the princess then left the control room leaving the disgruntled Haggar, disconcerted Pidge, and dismayed Coran behind.

* * *

Back on Doom, King Zarkon was in high spirits. The moment of truth had finally arrived, and he sat proudly upon his throne while a crowd of everyone who was anyone on Doom gathered in the royal chamber to the point that there was standing room only to bear personal witness to the execution of one of the Voltron Force. Only the red carpet remained open, to allow the execution procession to enter, and the massive view screen on the far side of the room was set up to transmit the bloody spectacle on every open frequency when it happened.

Zarkon regretted that Merla was not there at his side, but she was away on the far side of the Drule Empire politicking for their interests. He had gotten word to her to be sure that Viceroy Throk and Hazar were tuned in at the opportune moment, and he had left instructions to make sure the broadcast got to the Castle of Lions and of course, Galaxy Garrison, as soon as possible. A part of him missed having Haggar standing by the throne as she often was at moments such as these, but she would no doubt get special enjoyment watching the reaction unfold in the Castle of Lions, and he intended to pick her warty old brain for all the details of their reaction when she came back.

What surprised Zarkon, however, was the lack of some half-baked heroic rescue attempt at the last minute from the red lion. Although the Galaxy Alliance had chosen to call his bluff and he was not shocked that they refused to negotiate with an "evil tyrant" like him, he had expected those foolishly sentimental space explorers to pull off something to rescue their friend out of loyalty. He supposed that they were too busy picking up the pieces of the wreckage that was Castle Pollux and helping those easier to save than their yellow lion pilot friend, or that they clung to some misguided faith that Allura would be able to save him by having Lotor intervene out of love for her. Either way, they were fools, because Pollux was surviving on borrowed time. There was no way Lotor could convince _him_ to allow the Voltron pilot to live no matter how much he might plead for him to do so—which Lotor did him proud, at least, by not doing—and Zarkon of Doom would be damned if he would kowtow to the likes of his son's crybaby wife.

Zarkon's pleasant reverie ended at the sound of the horns being blown by the robotic sentries lined up by the throne room door, signaling that the big moment had arrived. A bloodthirsty cheer went through the crowd as the doors swung open and the execution procession strode in. Prince Lotor was in the lead, the perfect image of the conquering hero, parading in his prize prisoner behind him in heavy chains. Commander Cossack had the honor of carrying the chain that served as a leash connected to an iron collar on the doomed man's neck—a further means to degrade their hated enemy in his final moments—a step behind the prince. The two were flanked by a number of decorated royal guardsmen and fleet soldiers, and the cheers and hollers grew louder as they reached the foot of the throne and a grinning Zarkon arose to greet them.

"Father," Lotor called out as he bowed at the foot of the throne staircase, "I present Hunk, formerly of the Voltron Force, pawn of the Galaxy Alliance, and traitor to the new order of planet Arus by his association with Pollux and the stolen red lion."

The prisoner, whose resemblance to Hunk was close enough that no one bearing witness in person or on screen would have questioned it, growled in his chains. "I'm not—"

"A traitor to Allura?" Lotor whirled around with deadly grace and cut him off while Cossack hit the human hard from behind, forcing him to his knees.

"Too late to save your skin now, Hunk," the commander said coldly. "Now shut up."

"I beg to differ," Lotor went on, speaking loudly enough so that the entire assemblage as well as those watching a broadcast could hear him clearly. "You betrayed Allura and Arus when you sided with Pollux over her, when you conspired and aided your friend Lance in stealing her property in the name of your flawed Galaxy Alliance morality." He ended his sentence on a sibilant note, glowering at him in a show of unbridled contempt. "And how sad for you that your loyal friendship was not returned, that the oh-so-_upstanding_ Galaxy Alliance won't dirty their hands to save one of their own… because we're too _evil _to negotiate with."

Zarkon descended the staircase of his throne halfway, letting out a hearty chortle as he did so. "Galaxy Alliance hypocrisy has never known any bounds, unlike their weakness." He faced the crowd and the screen after looking down at his son and their prisoner for a long moment. "Planet Doom and the Drule Empire, however, have no use for weakness and will not tolerate insolence and interference from lesser worlds like those of the Galaxy Alliance. Let this be a message to any and all who presume to balk or stand in the way of King Zarkon and planet Doom."

Doom's king then charged down the stairs in a sudden show of strength and agility, and backhanded the chained Voltron Force prisoner with the sharp end of his scepter, creating an ugly gash on his large jaw and knocking him backward. Cossack quickly hauled the condemned man back upright with a rough tug on the chain, causing him to choke as blood ran down his face and neck. Zarkon then drew himself to his full height and turned to Lotor. "Kill him."

A cruel smile crossed Lotor's lips as a subsequent cheer went through the crowd. "Yes, Father."

Panicking, the bound man presumed to be Hunk struggled fruitlessly in his chains, while a decorated guardsman on the left holding two polished golden pikes handed one to the prince. Lotor held the gleaming weapon up to the vocal approval of the crowd and then, before "Hunk" could voice any last protests, he thrust it with savage force into the center of his chest.

The soon-to-be-dead man gasped out a raspy scream that died seconds after his lungs were pierced, and he twitched and clutched in vain while the crowd erupted in howls of delight all around, watching the spectacle in bloodthirsty excitement. Cossack pulled on the dying man's leash chain to prolong the pain in his death throes while Lotor leaned back and pressed with all his might on the pike so that it pierced his body fully. When it broke through, it elicited another thunderous roar of applause, and pinned the now dead man to the red throne room carpet, which grew darker with the pool of spilt blood beneath him.

"One Voltron lion destroyed, one pilot taken for our own, and one now dead," Zarkon's booming voice cut through the din of the crowd from the top of the stairs in front of his throne once more. "Voltron's legacy is an ugly chapter in our history that's now come to an end. Let it die and rot where it belongs." He gestured to the executed man on the pike. "Sever his head and toss his carcass in the Pit of Skulls, and parade the head through the streets of the capitol. I want it on display in the square until the vultures pick it clean!"

As Zarkon sat back down, the crowd's malevolent glee magnified tenfold. Basking in the favor of his people, Lotor accepted a shiny double-bladed axe topped with the royal skull crest from a guardsman on his right and swung it, removing the impaled body's head in one swoop. He then passed the bloodied axe to Cossack, who in turn handed it back to the guardsman, while Lotor took the second golden spear from the sentry on his right and wedged it squarely into the severed head's neck. The prince then held his trophy high, triumphant amongst a fresh wave of cheers and howls, and led an entourage of soldiers out of the hall to carry out his father's decree.

The crowd began to disburse as Lotor made his fanfare-filled exit. Some followed the prince, while others followed Cossack and the guards that accompanied him to dispose of the other remains in the Pit of Skulls. The smug and satisfied King Zarkon, however, stayed put in his throne, indulging in a wickedly delightful smile of victory and revenge.

* * *

In the newly repaired red lion, Lance and a hastily assembled rescue party consisting of Stride in his tiger fighter and a few other rebellious Galaxy Alliance-friendly types not bound by military regulation had just reached the system that was home to Doom when Zarkon's triumphant broadcast aired.

"Some transmission from Doom is coming across most of the channels on the ultrawave," one of Lance's allies radioed to the rest of the party.

Lance felt a knot in his stomach. _Oh no, don't tell me we're too late!_ His mind raced as he cast an anxious glance at the time display on the lion's console. Although he knew that Lotor's deadline had passed, it was still not by that much, and going from his past experience with Lotor, it was not his style to not give them a "one last ultimatum" chance to play on their sympathies and gloat when he had the advantage, especially with Allura involved. Lance had, in fact, pinned his hopes on the fact that Allura's influence would buy him time to get to Hunk. He held no delusions that Lotor would actually respect any wish she expressed to spare Hunk, but angry as Lance was with Allura, he knew without a doubt that she would never condone Hunk being hurt and that she would do everything in her power to stop it. That alone would have to account for some delay, he had figured, even if it was just for Lotor to come up with a way to keep her quiet or out of the way.

"Better see what they have to say so we don't fly in unprepared," Stride's gruff voice sounded next.

"Yeah," Lance agreed, as his stomach tightened into an anxious knot. _I was already too late to help Hunk and the others back on Pollux, please don't let it happen this time too,_ he prayed as he switched on the channel.

Unfortunately his worst fears were confirmed when he tuned in and saw the bloody execution spectacle already in progress. The image of Zarkon finishing his last words before giving the ominous order to "kill him" appeared on his screen.

"No!" the horrified Lance screamed.

He wanted to close his eyes, but he could not, and his blood ran cold as he witnessed his longtime friend, the strong and proud Hunk, then savagely run through with a golden spike.

Words failed the normally glib red lion pilot, and his breath caught in his throat. Lance heard similar exclamations from others in his party as they watched the gruesome spectacle, but it faded into the background compared to the whirling surge of emotion he felt in that moment.

_They killed him. The fucking bastards killed him!_

Lance could hardly believe it was real, wanted desperately to believe it was somehow staged, and that it was not his friend gasping his last in a pool of blood at Zarkon and Lotor's feet. He could not see Hunk's face up close over the monitor—perhaps the only small mercy shown him in that moment—but it was plain to see that he had the same build, same hair, and the same clothes his friend had been wearing when they had last parted ways on Pollux, so the notion that what he saw was somehow not real was quickly dispelled by the cruel reality of what stared him in the face.

Angry and sorrowful tears sprang to Lance's eyes and clouded his vision, sparing him the grisly sight of Lotor beheading his friend, spearing the severed head like a hors d'œuvre on a toothpick, and then parading it around like a bloody prize.

Several long seconds of somber silence passed before the voice of one of his compatriots came across the communicator. "Lance? You there man?"

He still could barely find the words to talk, but somehow Lance managed to answer. "Yeah."

"We're too late," another of his companions said from a neighboring ship. "Damn them."

"May his brave soul travel to the astral with honor and free of pain," Stride's solemn voice chimed in. "He will be mourned and avenged."

Lance's jaw tightened in a newfound resolve of grief and hatred. "You bet he will."

"Say the word and we strike with everything we've got," Stride offered. The others added in their agreement and support as well.

Blinking the tears from his eyes, Lance stared down hard at the screen. "Let's get 'em."

Nothing else was said as the rogue assemblage of ships, led by the red lion, blazed toward Doom with weapons at the ready and a searing desire to mete out hot, burning revenge.

The ship that carried Princess Allura back to Doom was also en route when the execution aired. Admiral Yaklitz received the transmission and called for Allura's attention.

"What is it?" she asked as she looked over.

"News broadcast," he answered succinctly, and sat back in his seat as it came on screen.

Allura's heart skipped a beat when she saw the crowd in the throne room and a smug—an entirely too smug—Zarkon atop his throne. It looked as though he was anticipating some spectacle that could only mean something horrible. She knew that a smile the likes of which were on the king of Doom's face could mean nothing good. Her fears were confirmed when the festivities started and she saw, to her horror, Lotor stride in with Cossack and the bound Hunk in tow.

She whirled to face Yaklitz. "You said that I was going back for a political appearance, to give the Drule Empire the right impression for all of this!" she said with rising alarm. "Why is it happening if we aren't there?"

Yaklitz regarded her impassively. "With all due respect, your highness, that was your advisor who said that was the appearance you were coming back for. Not me."

The princess made an agitated lurch toward the console. "But you said—"

"I said that I was here to take you back so you could make a political appearance with Prince Lotor. That's it."

Allura drew breath to argue further, but the spectacle playing out on the screen captured and held her attention to the point that she and the admiral both fell silent as it went on. Her blood ran cold as she watched it, as she saw Zarkon backhand Hunk with his scepter, and then give the bone-chilling order to kill him.

Lotor promised. He promised. He wouldn't do it…

Her mind raced to reconcile what was before her eyes with Lotor's promise to her that he would not allow Hunk to be killed. She felt the painful sting of betrayal and heartache for Hunk as she saw Lotor ram the spike through his body with her own eyes, to the delight of the king and the crowd… and the admiral beside her.

"All right! Check out that blood spray!" Yaklitz cheered at the gory sight.

"You sick monster!" Allura exclaimed in both horror and contempt. _It has to be fake_, she thought desperately._ Lotor wouldn't just turn around and kill him after he promised… would he?_

_"__I got an easy way to tell if Lotor's lying: his lips are moving." _Pidge's recent remark echoed in her mind, a dubious voice of reason that she wanted more than anything to silence with proof to the contrary.

Yaklitz meanwhile frowned. "Apologies, Princess," he said in a carefully controlled tone that indicated he was just speaking in obligatory formality. "I didn't mean to offend, and I don't mean any disrespect to you as Prince Lotor's wife. It's just that Voltron's been a real pain in the ass for us for a while, and it's hard not to cheer when you see the enemy get theirs."

"He wasn't supposed to 'get it'!" Allura cried, and collapsed into one of the seats, fighting back tears. "How could he do this to me after he promised?" The more she reviewed the terrible images in her head, the harder it was for her to believe it really could have all been faked, especially knowing for certain that Haggar was not there to use magic to make it more convincing.

"What else was he supposed to do? The Drule Empire's gotta see that we don't let the Galaxy Alliance jerk us around."

"But Hunk…" Unable to fight them back any longer, Allura finally lost the battle to her tears and they spilled freely down her cheeks. She had wanted so badly to believe Lotor, but what if she had been wrong, and Hunk paid the ultimate price? She could never forgive herself… and certainly never Lotor. Never. If she was certain of one thing, that was it.

**Continued**


	2. Chapter 2

Necessary Masque

Part Two

By Cheezey

Keith, Captain Niyte, and most of the other Galaxy Alliance soldiers helping the survivors of the Castle Pollux invasion did not see Zarkon's bloody broadcast firsthand. It did not take long for them to hear about it, however. Those on the ships stationed there spread the terrible news quickly, and when he heard it, Keith's heart sank like a lead brick. Ever practical, he had done his best to do what needed to be done and tried to shut out his own emotional pain by throwing himself into his duty. He, Niyte, and the others had been able to rescue a number of survivors from the rubble of Castle Pollux, and locate the remains of others who had not been quite as fortunate. While that was sad, at least they could be identified and their families given closure, which was more than could be said of those missing who's loved ones had to hope for the best and fear the worst simultaneously.

When he first heard the news about Hunk, Keith found that the pragmatic voice of reason that had told him such a fate was not unexpected was of far less comfort than he might have imagined. He was certainly in no way prepared for it, and it was not until he was told of his friend's fate that he realized how much irrational hope he'd had pinned on Lance being able to pull off a daring rescue in time. He demanded to see the feed, which the Alliance soldiers had recorded, and even knowing what was on it had not been enough to prepare him for the grisly sight of Lotor carrying out the execution so mercilessly and proudly. It was the latter, the flagrant flaunting and taunting of the cruel deed, the blatant disrespect for another living being's life—not to mention the woman he supposedly loved, who Keith could not imagine would ever be able to withstand such an emotional betrayal from him—that sickened him the most and filled him with more cynicism than he ever imagined possible.

"I'm so sorry for your friend," Niyte told him somberly, putting an arm on his shoulder. "He was a brave man."

"He was—and deserved better. A lot better." Keith blinked watery tears from his dark eyes. "He defended Pollux from Lotor with his life."

"Many of those who survived have him and actions of those like him to thank for it… not to mention everyone that Voltron was able to save in his time. The Voltron Force are heroes that'll always be remembered."

Keith looked away from the console and walked out of the ship on which he had watched the video, out into the ruined courtyard of Castle Pollux. "He shouldn't have to be only 'remembered.'" The former black lion pilot's voice was bitter as he looked over the wreckage. "Neither should anyone Lotor's hurt, like Bandor, or Sven or… Romelle?"

The commotion of an approaching transport convoy, with someone who looked like the last name he had spoken waving from the front of it, interrupted his words.

"Hey!" a nearby Galaxy Alliance soldier shouted. "It's Princess Romelle!"

"She made it!"

"More of them are alive!"

Keith and Niyte exchanged looks, a spark of hope alit in their tired eyes once more, and they raced with several other soldiers to meet them. Upon recognizing them, Sven leapt down to greet them while Romelle brought their vehicle to a halt. "Keith!"

"Sven! Romelle!" Keith ran just as fast to meet his friend. "You made it!"

"Just barely," Sven said with a wan smile as Romelle climbed down and joined them while Niyte and some others from the castle rescue crew came up from behind Keith. "It was a rough run, but we all made it, and got to town late last night." Sven's tone grew more serious as he got his first good long look at the wreckage of Castle Pollux up close. "Seems like there was just as rough a run here."

Romelle gasped despite herself as she surveyed the wreckage. "Oh my god… did anyone make it?" She looked to Keith. "My brother…"

"In critical condition, Princess," Niyte answered. "He's still alive."

She nodded. "I'd heard that he was injured… I guess there's been no change?"

"None we heard of, no."

Sven met Keith's dark eyes. "Hunk?" he said quietly, "Lotor's prisoner?"

The former black lion pilot's voice choked. "Worse."

Both Romelle and Sven's eyes filled with horror. "No…" Romelle whispered. "Oh no."

"Bastards," Sven growled, clenching his fists.

Romelle blinked through the tears that filled her eyes. "What about Lance and the red lion?"

"And you," Sven continued, realizing only then that Keith was back on Pollux after having left. "When did you come back?"

"When I heard that Pollux was being attacked."

Niyte nodded beside him. "He briefed us back at Galaxy Garrison on what we didn't know about the situation, and we brought the reinforcements to help out Pollux, your highness. I just wish we could've done more, sooner."

"Thank heavens you and Lance did come," Romelle said sadly, looking around. "I can only imagine how much worse it would've been if you hadn't…"

Her voice trailed off in another grieved sob while Sven put an arm around her and met Keith's eyes somberly. "Lance is all right?"

"Yeah," Keith confirmed with a nod. "He left to see if he could," he looked away as he found it hard to say the words now that he knew the mission was a failure, "save Hunk." His gaze fell to the ground, heavy as his heart.

That time Romelle could not hold back an audible cry. "It's so wrong! Hunk, my brother, all of it!"

Sven hugged her more tightly, blinking the wetness from his own eyes, but unable to find any words of comfort. Instead he just let her cry into him, taking solace in her embrace as much as she was in his. Keith went over to put his hand on Romelle's back to offer his own support, and when he did he noticed a simple metallic band on Sven's ring finger that he had never seen before. _That looks almost like a wedding ring_, Keith thought absently, and the association brought to his attention a metallic glint on Romelle's finger reflecting the light against the dark clothing on Sven's shoulder. It made him curious, but it was neither the time nor place to ask about it given the heavier matters at hand so he did not mention it.

"Your highness," Niyte addressed Romelle quietly, "I hate to burden you further in your grief, but given that we have a leader from Pollux here now, we have to concede our authority to you from here on out per Galaxy Alliance protocol. Do you want us to stay and continue to help with the rescue efforts? Send reinforcements to defend the area against a potential follow-up attack?" After a brief pause he then added in lower tone, "Put in a request for a retaliatory strike to headquarters?"

Lifting her head from Sven's shoulder, Romelle stepped forward and straightened. She looked past Captain Niyte for a moment, taking in the awful sight of the wreckage of her home and feeling the loss of her friends and loved ones weighing heavy on her heart, and then faced the Galaxy Alliance officer with all the royal bearing of her station. "Right now my people and my planet are the important thing, Captain. While I want Doom to pay for what they've done," her expression darkened, "as long as Pollux is protected and my people are made safe, and those surviving this are helped, that's the priority. Please don't let Lotor harm any more of my people, here or in any other town on Pollux he might decide makes a nice target."

He bowed. "Of course, Princess."

"I also want to know how my brother's doing. I'd like to go see him, but," she took a steadying breath, "I'm the only member of the royal family left. I don't want anyone on Pollux to think their ruling princess would desert them in their time of need."

"Understood," Niyte said. "We'll do everything we can."

"So will we," Keith assured Romelle while Sven nodded earnestly beside him. "No matter what, whatever you need."

"If Bandor wakes up, I want you to go to him, Keith. I want him to have a friend there who he trusts, who he knows he can count on, while Sven and I do what needs to be done here."

"Absolutely."

In gratitude Romelle placed a hand on Keith's shoulder, a hand that Keith now saw most definitely had a shining metal band on it. "Thanks. For everything," she said, and then went with Niyte aboard the command ship to find out the latest on Bandor's condition, leaving Keith alone with Sven briefly.

"This world is lucky to have such a strong princess," Sven mused as he watched Romelle depart with Niyte. "She'd face down the demons of the universe for her family and this world."

"And anyone she cares about," Keith agreed, and gave Sven a pointed look. "Especially you."

Sven's brow rose at the remark, although he could not help but smile as well. "I'd do the same for her."

Keith smiled back at him in return. "I know. You vowed to."

"What?" the surprised Sven replied, while Keith gestured to the band on his friend's hand.

"You married her, didn't you?"

That he had guessed surprised him, but he did not bother to deny it. "Earlier today. She insisted." Sven's smile broadened. "I tried to tell her that I was just a pilot and she was a princess and that she should find a prince like she's supposed to, but she wouldn't have it."

Keith let out a dark chuckle. "Well you ought to know better than to argue with a headstrong princess when she gets an idea into her head." Though his words had been intended in light jest, as soon as he spoke them they hung in the air like a dark specter, the shade of Allura and her ill-thought decision to marry Lotor that had brought them all to the state they were in. A painful silence fell over them for a long moment until Keith forced himself to break it with words of optimism. "I'm sure you two will be very happy together. Pollux is lucky to have you in its royal family."

"And Bandor will be king one day anyhow, so what does it matter if Romelle marries a commoner, right?" Sven said in a tone far more hopeful than he actually felt regarding the young prince's critical state.

"Absolutely." Keith gave his friend a congratulatory clap on the back, and they made their way back toward the crowd.

"For now though, keep this between us. She wants to make a proper announcement at a better time."

"Of course."

* * *

The same grisly execution scene that Lance had seen in the red lion, that Allura had seen in Admiral Yaklitz's ship, and that those on Pollux had witnessed over the ultrawave also aired in real time on the screen in the Castle of Lions. The audience consisted of a horrified and disgusted Pidge and Coran, a mildly impressed Haggar, and an aghast and distraught Nanny who walked in just as it ended, with Hunk's head being severed and skewered on the pike. "My god!" Allura's governess screamed, and buried her face in her hands. "Those savages! Oh, poor Hunk!"

Pidge whirled toward Haggar with anger burning in his eyes. "You said he had a plan!" he yelled, his voice furious with accusation. "Then tell me how that's not real!"

Shaking with emotion himself, Coran put his arms around Nanny's shoulders. "He swore to Allura that it would be staged."

"It looked like Hunk to me!" Pidge grabbed a blaster and aimed it at Haggar. "Tell me it's fake! Prove it!"

"Don't threaten me," Haggar hissed, and with surprising quickness aimed her staff and stunned him with a blast of magic. "What's the matter? Don't you trust Prince Lotor's word like your dear princess does?"

Spurred from her grief by anger at the attack on Pidge, Nanny broke away from Coran and lunged in her direction. "Deceitful old witch!" she shouted, while Coba hissed and leapt at the woman, protecting his mistress and forcing Nanny to step back. "We all know he lies like a fish swims in water. It's all he does! And you leave Pidge alone!"

"It's a stun beam. He'll live," Haggar stated, irritated that politics demanded that she had to be that merciful in the first place. She turned and glowered at Pidge as he stood back up. "But the next time you point a weapon at me, I won't take Prince Lotor's pet princess' feelings into consideration."

Coran frowned and forced a diplomatic, albeit icy, tone. "That execution was gruesomely convincing. And I'm sure the princess would appreciate her friends remaining unharmed, so if both of you could please exercise some restraint…"

"Provided I'm not provoked," Haggar retorted. She then glanced at the screen, which displayed the last of the procession leaving Zarkon's throne room before it faded to black. "As for Lotor's little production, I must say I'm impressed that he pulled it off. Without me there and that buffoon Cossack helping him, I half expected a dummy with a balloon for a head to show up."

Pidge did not argue with Coran, but did not apologize for his actions either. "Well _someone_ was killed," he insisted, eyeing Haggar suspiciously. "I've seen death, seen it up close, thanks to people like you!"

"Yes, someone was killed." Haggar spoke as though she was talking to someone very simple and insignificant. "But it wasn't your friend."

Coran remained suspicious. "You're certain of that?"

Cackling, the witch replied, "I see you're not."

Nanny's emotions simmered to the surface again, and she waved her fist in contempt. "Cruel, evil hag! To take pleasure in this—this barbaric bloodsport!"

"Now you know why I've been so bored on Arus," Haggar quipped back before returning her attention to Coran. "But to answer your question and put the trigger happy boy and hysterical house-frump's fears to rest, yes."

"How do you know?" Pidge demanded.

"Because I'm a pro at things like this." She waved them over to her crystal and conjured an image in it, one that showed Hunk alone in a dark cell still quite alive. "See? They killed a look-alike." Haggar smirked coldly at Nanny. "At your darling princess' order. I wonder how she'd feel knowing that Lotor simply killed someone else to appease her rather than kill her friend."

"You're a monster," Nanny whispered in hoarse disgust, and then crossed herself out of respect to the innocent man that had died to perpetuate the charade.

Haggar sneered back at the governess. "You say the sweetest things."

Pidge meanwhile fell silent, feeling an unpleasant mix of relief and guilt upon seeing proof that Hunk was still alive, but at the cost of another man's life. _I hate this,_ he thought miserably. _Worrying about Hunk and Bandor, wondering where Lance is, what Keith and Sven and Romelle are doing and if they need me, and what's going to happen to Allura and Arus with her married to that evil psycho!_

Coran's thoughts were equally troubled as he turned back toward the now-blank monitor and let out a weary sigh. "Oh, I hope we hear from the princess soon."

* * *

The mood was far more festive on planet Doom, especially amongst the crowd gathered at the Pit of Skulls where Cossack and his entourage had just finished tossing the headless remains of what was presumed to be Hunk into the Pit of Skulls. Commander Cossack was in his element; he loved the roar of a gleeful crowd honoring him as a hero, and while his following was not as large as the one that had gone with the prince into the city, it was still a sizeable group and contained a number of important figures from each of the noble houses. He noticed many high-standing members of each of the nine high houses in attendance and even some of the high seats, though he noticed that of those that were present, their spouses were not. It was an easy guess that they had gone with Lotor; appearances were of paramount importance in the nobility and none of their figureheads would want to miss the opportunity to be recognized as being supportive of the prince in his moment of victory, lest it cost them precious royal favor. Still Cossack was a bit dismayed that of those he did recognize, he did not see his own wife among his crowd. He did see some of his Aldar'ach blood relations, however, and several of the Tonorm'oith clan, including his inherited in-law Tonchelon, the weaselly younger brother of Kuryaki's deceased first husband Sevakor, and Sevakor's sister Nyrana.

"Cossack! Nice show, son!" his father, Lord Tadack's, voice boomed over the disbursing crowd as he approached.

"Thanks Dad." Cossack grinned at him and his sister, brother-in-law, and youngest brother that stood with his father. "Glad you guys came to my party."

His sister Sulestri, a stocky Doomite woman with well-kept gray hair and dressed in stylish clothing for her age of just a few years younger than Cossack, wrinkled her nose. "Well, the city events get so crowded, they get ten times as many commoners showing up. Who wants to deal with that?"

"The bars passing out free and cheap drinks at things like this too also draws 'em out," Tadack said.

"Let me guess, that's why Stryck's there?" Cossack guessed, naming his other brother that was not present.

Cossack's youngest sibling, Tadran, a boy just shy of twelve with a lean build and an impish smile, nodded. "He plans to get sloshed and get laid afterward. He'll probably stagger back from some club at dawn and crash with some whore or on a brothel couch." He shrugged and rolled his eyes, as that was typical behavior of their absent brother, who prioritized partying much like Haggar did her magic.

"Your mother wants me to pass on her well-wishes to you for your role in the victory on Pollux, of course," Tadack went on to say. "She, Stryck, and Cassri went to the other ceremony, but they want you to know that they're proud of you too."

"I doubt Visycka or Cassri will bother with the seedy bars or whorehouses though," Zalik chortled, naming Cossack's mother and youngest sister, and adjusted his glasses. Though many on Doom opted to fix problem eyes surgically or with cybernetics, Zalik preferred the flexibility that the old-fashioned accessories afforded him, an ironic choice considering he was otherwise what many would consider a tech geek by Doom standards.

"Thanks. Tell 'em I missed seeing them here." Cossack frowned as he saw Tonchelon and Nyrana approaching. Though he had nothing specific against the latter, her brother was annoying enough that he was wary of anyone who kept company with him by default. "Tonchelon. I'm surprised to see you here."

His kinsman by marriage smiled insincerely at him. "Why Commander, don't tell me you doubt the family's well wishes on such an auspicious occasion?"

"Congratulations on your victory at Pollux, Commander," Nyrana said afterward. She had the same greenish skin tone shared by her brother Tonchelon and late brother Sevakor, as well as the large canine-shaped ears that many of the Tonorm'oith clan had. They twitched ever-so slightly as she addressed Cossack. "You do us proud as our high seat. Voltron's been a personal grudge of our family's for years."

"Tell me about it," he chortled in response. "He's a dirty word in our household."

A woman several years younger than Nyrana, around Sulestri's age Cossack guessed, that bore a strong familial resemblance to Nyrana, spoke up. "Well Aunt Kuryaki's got every reason to hate him. He destroyed cousin Yurak's reputation and shamed our entire family by extension."

"Raddena," Nyrana said sternly, narrowing her eyes at the girl at her side, "this isn't the time or place."

She frowned sourly. "It's true. Voltron's a menace. It never should've come to that." She looked to Cossack. "I'm glad it's over, and I hope you obliterate Pollux for harboring those damn lions. I'd just as soon as see them all melted into scrap."

Tadack chuckled. "Your daughter's got the fighting spirit, Nyrana. Maybe Cossack could put that to good use in the fleet."

Straightening himself in a self-important manner, Tonchelon scoffed, "My niece is _hardly_ a soldier, Lord Tadack, feisty or not."

"I like a battle like any Doomite, but I prefer sniping strategically as opposed to getting my hands dirty," Raddena admitted with a smirk. "Mother says that makes me courtier material. She's probably right."

A chuckle went through the group save Tonchelon. "Sounds like every courtier I ever dealt with," Zalik agreed.

"Well if something opens up, I'll let you know," Cossack told the girl, and smiled at Tonchelon in a way that offered no reassurance that he would not offer his niece something he did not approve of simply to be contrary.

The rest of their conversation was then cut off by the loud roar of approaching spacecrafts above, causing them and the remaining spectators conversing amongst each other in the crowd to look up.

"What's—?" Tonchelon started, but a louder exclamation from Zalik at the same time interrupted him.

"Shit!" He recognized the infamous-on-Doom red trail behind the lead ship, and the distinctive gleam in the wake of a second tiger-shaped one accompanying others behind it. "That's the red—"

"Lion. And some of his buddies, yeah," Cossack finished irritably. "Showing up too late to be of any good to their dead pal, but still in time to rain on my party." Just then Cossack's communicator buzzed loudly with the customized alarm that signaled an order coming directly from King Zarkon. It was, appropriately, a recorded imitation of a robeast in the midst of a deadly roar. He sighed. "It's been fun, but duty calls."

Tadack clapped him on the back. "Give 'em hell, son!"

"Maybe you can add those pilots' bodies to the Pit next," Nyrana suggested with a smile.

Stepping back so that Cossack could pass, Tonchelon gave him an utterly fake pleasant look. "Continue to do your family's good name proud, Commander."

"Wouldn't dream of less, Tonchy!" he said, enjoying the notion of how the informality would bristle him even if he did not have time to witness and savor it, and ran to his transport craft. "Catch you later!" Cossack waved and left the festive crowd, now watching the skies as Castle Doom's automated defenses kicked in and returned fire at the enemy ships, behind him.

* * *

"The nerve of interrupting my triumph!" Lotor sneered as he stormed into the control center of Castle Doom, arriving shortly after Cossack.

King Zarkon's image was also on the monitor, keeping close tabs on the operations in the control center via ultrawave transmission. He had two channels open, one broadcasting directly to them and another shared with their broadcast to the invading ships. "Well well well, what do we have here? Lions and tigers and Galaxy Alliance rebels, oh my!"

"You're too late to save your friend now, Lance," Lotor taunted along with his father. "But we'll take your offer of the lion anyway and return the body in a gesture of goodwill."

"We'll keep the head though," Cossack finished. "We like the ambiance it adds to the city square."

A barrage of fire from the red lion's mouth scorched the top tower of Castle Doom. "You bastards are going to pay for what you did to Hunk!"

Lotor instructed the robots to return fire from several hidden tentacle-shaped guns that emerged from the castle wall to take precise aim. "What we did? No Lance, it's what _you _did when you stole Allura's lion. I was even generous enough to give you a deadline, which you willfully ignored. You should've learned by now that we don't bluff."

Stride's sleek and swift tiger fighter expertly destroyed several of the slithering projectiles. "You're honorless dogs."

"Stride! I'm hurt," Zarkon said in a mock wounded tone. "We offered a fair deal and they didn't meet the deadline. We're still willing to trade. Consider the head the late fee."

The attacking ships strafed the side of Castle Doom, causing some surface damage, but their shields deflected the brunt of it, leaving their operations and structural integrity uncompromised. Cossack laughed and fired back at them, landing a fatal shot one of the ships in their envoy. "You'll have to do better than that. We took note of how your tiger fighter broke through our weaknesses last time you showed up. It won't be so easy to show off this time around." He deployed another attack, one that launched several discs into the air around the enemy crafts that emitted disruptive energy beams which caused severe electronic interference with their navigational equipment.

It was not enough to bring the enemy down, but it was enough to disorient the pilots. One of Lance and Stride's companion ships had just picked up the escape pod from the ship that Cossack shot down just in time to get caught in one of the disrupter fields. It spun helplessly out of control for several long moments that enabled the robots in the command center to target it with a fatal shot, destroying it before any escape pods, even the survivor of the first crash, could escape. Lotor cackled viciously. "More of your friends die for you. Your red lion is aptly colored with all the blood on its claws."

The tiger fighter weaved through the onslaught of laser fire and disrupter fields, and landed on the east side of the tower firing most heavily upon them, taking out several of its offensive weapons with its claws and teeth. "They knew the risks when they came to fight at his side. They died a valiant death, fighting for what they believed in."

Zarkon let out a bored groan. "Oh Stride, how much of that self-righteous Galaxy Alliance fruit punch have you been drinking these days?" He twirled his scepter. "You had such promise in your day, but you never did see the big picture. Unfortunately your type never learns. You fight for your high-minded principles your whole life and what does it get you? Your pride, at least until someone younger, better, or stronger trumps you and you realize that for all of your blustering, all you are is a naïve corpse whose memorial will read 'Here lies Stride, the honorable', not 'Stride the King' or 'Stride, Ruler of Galaxies'. You'll never have any legacy that'll count for anything in the grand scheme of things." Several snake-like projections erupted from the stone below the tower upon which the tiger fighter had landed, and they coiled around the ship's legs, sending burning blasts of energy into it.

Stride let out a strained growl of pain. "What you think counts and what I do are very different things," he retorted between strained breaths. "And ultimately _you'll_ be the one that finds out what really counts the hard way."

"I got your back, Stride!" Lance flew in and slashed the deadly coils away from the legs of his ally's ship. "Hang in there!"

Grinning, Lotor pressed another button on the console that released a robeast from the pen near the castle. "You may have his back, but I've got yours! Robeast! Finish off those invaders!"

Lance and Stride, recovering now that the red lion had broken him free, regrouped with their only remaining companion as the robeast launched into the airspace in front of them. The creature was unlike any native to a planet any of them had seen, a spindly beast with long and slender ears that ended in two small forks, legs and arms with double sets of knees and elbows that allowed it flexibility close to that of a tentacle or snake, but with the musculature and leverage of jointed appendages. It had only two eyes, but six sets of spikes on its body—two on its chest, two on its back, and one on each hip on the side. They found when it lunged toward them that the spikes could shoot deadly spear-like projectiles charged with energy.

"I swear Haggar makes these things uglier every time," Lance said with a grimace.

Cossack heard the muttered remark over the ultrawave and laughed snidely. "She only makes her best for protecting Castle Doom. Show 'em what you've got, Twister!"

Lotor cast his commander an odd look. "'Twister'?"

He shrugged. "I get a kick out of giving them nicknames."

The prince snorted in half amusement, half derision, which graduated to a genuine chuckle when Twister flew into a tumbling roll that barreled right at the remaining ships. Spikes sparking, it bowled straight into the remaining ship that was not the red lion or tiger fighter, striking it with a deadly blow.

"I'm hit!" the pilot shouted in a panic.

"Eject! We'll get you!" Lance assured him. _I won't let you die too,_ he vowed. _Lotor isn't taking any more lives today, I swear it!_

Fortunately for Lance and Stride's ally, Lance's luck had returned at least briefly, for he was able to keep that promise and scoop his escape pod into the red lion's mouth safely while his damaged ship crashed to the rocky ground below. Castle Doom focused their fire heavily on the red lion and tiger fighter, and between them and the robeast, it was fast becoming clear that they were outgunned. One or the other they might have had a chance against, but not both, especially with the red lion unable to use its fire attack while holding the other pilot's escape pod in its jaws.

The two of them fought the robeast and dodged the ever-increasing laser fire onslaught from Castle Doom valiantly, but before long Stride's voice sounded in the speakers of the red lion's cabin over their private channel. "Lance, this is your mission and you have to make the decision. I swore loyalty to you and I'll follow your lead, but this can only go one way. We can retreat now, or fight to an honorable death avenging Hunk, our lost compatriots, and the innocent of Pollux."

"I'm with you too," the surviving pilot in the escape pod echoed. "I don't want to die… but if it means dealing a blow to Zarkon's empire, then my wife'll at least be a proud widow."

With a clenched jaw and fingers wrapped tightly around the controls, Lance blinked the heated tears of emotion from his eyes. He hated Lotor and what he, Zarkon, and the others had led his friends and loved ones to. His heart and soul ached for Hunk, for Prince Bandor and the good people of Pollux, and for the brave fighters that had come with him that day because the Galaxy Alliance was too tied up in protocol to send a proper envoy to help them, who died for their courage and altruism. He considered driving the red lion right into the heart of Castle Doom and squashing Zarkon squarely on his smug throne, or what it would be like to go out in a blaze of glory hitting the power station of Castle Doom and setting it and every last Doomite inside it up in a brilliant explosion. Lance knew that if he so chose, Stride would follow him to his end and make his last blow count for just as much and that between them, the red lion and tiger fighter would deal quite a blow to their empire.

On the other hand, the Alliance had already lost the blue lion forever and the black, green, and yellow lions were locked away inactive with their keys in Allura's well-meaning but misguided hands. Though he knew that while she would never let them be used to do harm, she was also blind to the fact that holding the lions and not letting them fight Doom's forces was akin to sentencing those they could have helped to just as bad a fate. Could he live with himself if he led two more ships that could stand up to Doom's attacks fall in a suicide mission that would, at best, only destroy Zarkon, Lotor, and some of their minions? They could not destroy all of Doom in that one blow, and another dictator would rise to take Zarkon's place sooner than not.

"Lance?" Stride's urgent voice broke into his thoughts again.

The red lion pilot weighed his options again, and he pictured the faces of his friends, the two whose lives he would take with him. Stride was too good a man and too good a fighter for the universe to lose so soon, and his other companion had a wife and family, people that loved him. Lance, too, did not want to die, and he was pretty sure that if Hunk was with him, he would have followed his lead to help a friend, but also would have told him not to kill himself on his account. He realized in that moment if their roles were reversed, and he was the one watching Hunk from the astral, he would be hollering at him to not get himself killed while there was the opportunity for him to leave, come back, and kick ass at better odds without having to die in the process.

"I told myself I wasn't going to let Lotor take any more lives today and I meant it. Hunk wouldn't want us to die avenging him, and the Alliance needs us and our ships on their team." Lance sighed; he hated running from the likes of Lotor and his ilk, it chafed at his pride and made him feel like a coward, even though he knew logically it was the right choice. "We go back and regroup."

"I'm with you." Stride's reply was to the point, but sincere. The tiger fighter and red lion rose high into Doom's sky, pulling back from the castle's fire with only the robeast chasing them at that point.

"We can fight and destroy it in space. It'll take a beating in the energy fields around Doom as it is," Lance said as they gained altitude with the beast on their tail.

The retreat signaling their victory thoroughly pleased their enemy in the castle. "Uh oh, looks like the kitties don't want to play with us anymore," Lotor said with a cruel laugh.

Zarkon joined his son in his mean-spirited laughter. "The proud Stride and the red lion run like scared little kittens. This is truly a greeting card moment!"

"It's far from over, Zarkon," Stride snarled contemptuously as their connection grew faint from distance, the feline ships now far from Castle Doom and high in the planet's atmosphere.

"Not by a long shot. Count on it!" Lance finished in echo.

The connection then broke completely, and Lotor and Cossack watched as Twister followed the red lion and tiger fighter into space, where it soon lost the battle to the two enemy ships. Neither was terribly concerned, they had robeasts aplenty in their pens and neither the red lion nor the tiger fighter were in any condition to blast back down for an instant rematch. Cossack shook his head as they left. "I'm quakin' in my boots," he said sarcastically to the monitor that displayed their retreating forms.

Lotor eyed the screen with an aura of gloating arrogance. "Let them come back. Without Voltron they're a mere annoyance to us. We've got what we want."

"_You've_ got what you want, Lotor," Zarkon corrected his son suddenly over the other monitor. "Yes, we've eliminated Voltron and conquered Arus, and you've got your little princess, but we still don't have a full set of lions. I want that red one and its loudmouthed pilot's head to complete our collection, and I still want Pollux destroyed. And after that little display, I'm adding Stride and his striped little ship to our list of trophies to acquire too."

"And you'll have it, Father." Lotor folded his arms confidently, unable to help feeling smug given the victories he had under his belt for the day. Not only had he gained the soaring approval of the people of Doom and the Drule Empire, he had humbled the red lion and that arrogant Stride, and still managed to pull it all off without breaking his promise to Allura to not harm her precious pilot friend. His father was clearly none the wiser about that, and soon he would have his beloved Allura at his side once more as well. A smile spread across the prince's face as he then inquired as to the status of her ship and heard that she would be arriving shortly. "Keep an eye on things here until they're out of our territory, and then you're dismissed," he told Cossack, and then left with nothing but his victories and Allura on his mind.

Cossack nodded to Lotor as he departed, and monitored the screens for a short while longer. "What a bunch of losers," he muttered with a shake of his head, once it was clear that they were not returning. "You tin-heads think you can handle everything here now that the pussies went home?"

"Yes, Commander," was the robots' unanimous response.

"Good. I'm gonna go grab my celebratory beer then. They invaded before I even got one." He straightened his helmet and headed out to the landing bay where his transport craft was parked. When he arrived, however, he was surprised to see his wife Kuryaki emerge from another one nearby.

"Cossack!" She approached him and drew him into a warm embrace. "Just the commander I came to see."

"Hey baby," he greeted her with a jovial smile. "What're you doing here?"

"I was in the city when I heard the red lion attacked. Of course I knew you and the soldiers would take care of it, but still, how aggravating, right in the middle of the victory ceremonies and all." She shook her head, the polished metal on her arm band glinting in the artificial lighting of the bay as she did so.

"Yeah. Even the pieces of Voltron have bad timing," Cossack quipped back, before giving her a more serious look. "Sorry I missed you out at the Pit. You're probably not sorry to have missed Tonchelon, though."

Wincing briefly at the mention of her brother-in-law, Kuryaki then gave Cossack an apologetic look. "Oh, yes, I do regret that I couldn't go with you. You know how it is, though, fond as I am of you, it wouldn't do to not have our house presence there for the prince. And I certainly didn't want Tonchelon representing us." She put a hand on his arm, the one that bore the bracer she gave him in their marriage ceremony. "That's one of the things I came here to talk to you about, actually, that and to say I'm glad you gave that worthless space explorer and his friends what for. I swear, the moment they're all dead and rotting can't come soon enough for me." Her expression darkened, but it passed quickly, and she then leaned up and gave Cossack a light kiss on the lips. "You and the prince were quite magnificent in today's ceremony, though."

Immediately the commander's ego fluffed at the praise. "Thanks! Cossack the Terrible does his best for Doom."

"Indeed he does," she agreed. "And as such, I'd like you to come by the estate tonight if you can."

"Anything special going on?" He hoped so, a nice dinner in his honor at the home estate, followed with the lusty attentions of his wife and the ability to sleep in the following morning sounded wonderful to him.

Kuryaki nodded. "I've ordered the servants to prepare a festive meal celebrating the end of Voltron and your part in it. A number of the family will be there, especially since Prestus also arrived this morning. Unfortunately Ryton won't be able to make it; he had to visit his own parents for their family's celebratory meal. I'd hoped you'd have the chance to meet him, but maybe next time."

"Prestus," Cossack repeated, searching his memory for which relative that was, and mildly disappointed that her invitation had emphasized socializing with his in-laws and no mention of her showing him personal admiration in an intimate way afterward.

"Your grandson… well, step-grandson?" she reminded him archly. "I told you about it earlier this week."

"Oh yeah." He vaguely remembered, before all of the Voltron lion-related fecal matter had hit the fan, her telling him that one of her daughter's kids was going to be on-planet with their father for a visit and that he would be staying at the estate, and that he was supposed to meet him at some point. Cossack still had not met Kuryaki's daughter or her family because they lived on the planet Azuit, a far trip from Doom. With everything else going on, he had forgotten all about it, not that his in-laws ranked particularly high on his priority list anyhow.

"So you'll be there?"

"Sure," he said. "I was actually headed out that way now—"

The arrival of another ship in the bay interrupted their conversation. Cossack recognized it immediately as the _Zithkar-Ven_, the battleship sent to retrieve Princess Allura from Arus. It seemed that Prince Lotor knew it had come as well, for he entered the landing bay mere seconds after it did.

A royal guardsman blew a horn to catch the attention of those present. "Stand aside for the arrival of her highness Princess Allura, wife of Prince Lotor!"

Kuryaki's nose wrinkled in obvious distaste. "That's my cue to leave. I'll see you back at home celebrating the end of at least _one_ of Voltron's pilots."

Her tone was low and sour as she slipped into her ship, reminding Cossack of just how well she would not have taken to the notion of secretly harboring the not-really-dead Hunk as Lotor had earlier suggested to him as a way of keeping him safe and out of sight. He gave her a quick wave goodbye as she disappeared into her craft, just in time for it to appear that she had simply missed the announcement and was not deliberately snubbing the prince's wife.

On the other side of the bay, Prince Lotor did not notice or care about what transpired between Cossack and his wife anyhow. While he waited for Allura to disembark he only vaguely noticed the commander, now by himself, standing outside of his wife's transport craft, grounded per protocol as all traffic was until Allura's landing party was inside Castle Doom.

There was not a long wait. A moment later the doors to the _Zithkar-Ven_ opened and Allura came rushing out, past Admiral Yaklitz, past the armed guards at the ramp, and ran toward Lotor in a way that Nanny would have told her was rather unbecoming for a woman of her station had she witnessed it. Her governess would have approved more of Allura's next move, however, which was to go directly to Lotor, arms outstretched to greet her, and slap him hard across the face, which until that moment had worn a rather pleased look.

"How _could _you?" The princess' furious cry echoed throughout the landing bay, which was now dead silent save for the mechanical hum of ships in idling mode.

The stunned Lotor began to reply, "Allura, I—"

"No!" she hollered, cutting him off, tears streaming down her face. "No more lies! You promised me!" Her angry voice broke with a sob. "You killed Hunk! You promised me you wouldn't hurt him! How could you? Liar!" She went to strike him again, but that time Lotor anticipated it and grabbed her hand before it could land.

"Listen to me, Allura!" Lotor's reply was heated and it was obvious that he was trying hard to rein in his temper. Allura did not realize it, but she had just done something that no one except his father had ever done and lived to tell about before—strike and insult him in public. That alone was telling of the level of feeling Lotor had for the Arusian princess, which the stunned Cossack bearing witness to the display wondered if she even understood.

Still crying, Allura yelled back at him, "I won't listen to you, murderer! You promised me, you said you loved me! You're incapable of love!"

Allura's words stung Lotor far more than any blow she might have landed on his face, and he tightened his grip on her fist. "You misjudge me," he said through a clenched jaw, "as usual. You ought to know by now how much I love you." He glowered down at her, the inner voices of those that mocked him in the past for loving the princess of Arus as strongly as he did echoing through his mind. He drew a deep breath in an effort to restrain that surge of emotion lest he do anything he would later regret, and it was then that he noticed his audience of assorted guardsmen, soldiers, robots, and Admiral Yaklitz and Cossack. Channeling his anger into that problem first, Lotor gestured around wildly shouting, "All of you! Dismissed! Now!"

Immediately the crowd scattered like vampire bats exposed to a bright light, but while Cossack was making his exit, he was surprised to hear Lotor bark his name before he quite made it out. "Cossack! Not you. Get over here."

_Oh shit, I don't want to be his marriage counselor,_ the commander groaned inwardly, figuring that nothing good for him could possibly be coming from whatever Lotor was about to say or do. He approached and looked uncertainly from the angry tear-stained face of Allura to the fed up and frustrated one of his prince. "Sire?"

"I'm going to take Allura for a walk through the south side of the castle to calm her down," Lotor said icily, keeping his grip tight on the struggling princess' wrist, ignoring her protests. "You are going to clear the area and make sure that nothing and no one there will upset her further." He gave the commander a pointed look. "And should you see anything that might _improve_ her mood, make sure it's taken care of. Understood?"

Catching the double meaning of Lotor's order, Cossack bowed obediently. While it was true the south side was the "scenic walk" through the castle in the general direction toward the prince's private quarters, cutting through a courtyard and having minimal servant and soldier foot traffic, it also passed a corridor not far from where Hunk was being kept in secret. It was an easy guess that finding something to improve her mood meant proving that her friend was alive, as promised. "Yes Sire."

"Good." Lotor turned back to Allura as Cossack left. She had quit trying to wrench her arm free of Lotor's grip, but she continued to glare at him. The hateful look in her eyes pierced his heart and riled his anger enough that it made it difficult for him to resist striking her, but somehow he managed, knowing in the back of his mind that such behavior would only drive her even farther from his love. Instead, he said with unmasked spite and condescension, "Are you willing to talk now?"

Unaffected by his tone, Allura scowled at him. "I have nothing to say to you that I didn't say already. After what you did..." She looked away in disgust. "Nothing you can say will _ever_ be able to make me trust you again."

"Ironic," Lotor scoffed, "considering it seems I'm the one who's misplaced my trust inyou thinking you might trust _me _for once."

"What is that supposed to mean?" she demanded as they began to walk, their path already clear of any unwanted passers-by as they headed toward the south side of Castle Doom.

"It means that if you trusted me and what I promised you, that you would've given me a chance to explain everything to you before assuming I lied to you."

His words caught her off guard, and she looked up at him, only then noticing the flash of hurt in his yellow eyes as they stared down at her. "So are you telling me what was broadcast to the entire Galaxy Alliance when I wasn't there to stop you wasn't real?"

"That's _exactly_ what I'm telling you."

Her glare softened to a frown, and a brief silence fell over them as they walked until Allura ended it. "You lied to everyone else then, and to me by letting me think you'd wait until I was here."

Lotor looked ahead as they walked, loathing the way her disapproval made him feel, especially since he was not used to concerning himself with the feelings of others. "I never told you when I'd do it, so I'd hardly call that a lie. As for everyone else, you knew the plan, and I certainly never promised to be honest with everyone," he finished on a sarcastic note. "And really, Allura," he faced her again, "you don't put me in a position to do it."

Allura started to voice a response, but stopped as the uncomfortable notion that he had a point settled in. They walked in silence again until she finally said, "If Hunk is alive and you didn't kill him, then I'm sorry." Her voice was quiet, but sincere. "But for me to believe that…"

"You'll have to see him," Lotor guessed, and let out a weary sigh. "I figured as much. Believe me, I know your trust doesn't come easily, Allura."

They turned sharply and went down a dark corridor that Allura did not recognize. It was a cramped, twisted, and out-of-the way passage that was dimly lit, full of doors that required Lotor to put in a special code to unlock, and eerily devoid of anyone. The farther in they went, the more it smelled of mold and must, and an almost palpable atmosphere of oppression and misery choked the stale air of the place.

"I know this isn't the way to your quarters."

Lotor let out a dark chuckle. "No. It's the way to your friend's, actually. Temporarily, anyway." He stopped before one locked door and stepped in front of her to make sure he had her full attention before continuing. "Understand that what we've done is enough to have us both killed on my father's and the Drule Empire's terms. This favor, this secret, is a matter of life and death. You have to understand that, Allura. There can be no mistakes, no slip-ups, no references that might give anyone reason to question the execution. It's not what you want for your friend, but it's the best I can do." He paused and then added, "I regret that I had to have it play out this way, but making you believe it was true with a genuine, public reaction was the only way to make sure the charade was convincing enough to convince my father and everyone else. After all, everyone knows you would never accept your friend's death right in front of your face no matter _how_ good an act you tried to put on."

The look in Lotor's eyes and the conviction with which he spoke made it clear to Allura that he was being honest with her, brutally so, and that both frightened and relieved her at once. She felt better knowing that he had honored her wish to spare Hunk and was earnestly trying to please her, especially now that they were inextricably tied together in marriage, but the web of deceptions, half-truths, and appeasements that put them in precarious positions seemed to grow thicker and more dangerous with every decision they made. She wondered if they would ever manage to pull themselves and those she cared about back out of it again. Lotor's decision to deliberately hurt her to make her part of a charade that she asked him to pull off to fool everyone else was but one example of the mass of contradictions her life had become. And Hunk, until that moment she had not really thought about the logistics of his fate, and what it could mean for him, them, and those that helped them if it leaked. That in turn meant that Hunk, while alive, was certainly not in for pleasant times ahead, perhaps for the rest of his life. Allura had thought, she realized naïvely so, that once things settled down and had lined themselves out, that she would be able to free him and send him home to a friendly world in the Galaxy Alliance. What Lotor had just told her drove home how foolish she was to think that it could be resolved so simply, and it made her heart ache even more.

She looked at the locked door, distressed. "Will he…? I mean, he won't have to live _here_ in a cell his whole life, will he? That's just..."

"Almost enough to make you wish you were dead," Lotor finished for her.

Allura bit her lip. "That's not what I was going to say."

"No." He smiled ruefully. "You don't think as darkly as I do, Allura. It's one of the things I find so fascinating about you." Lotor opened the door, and they entered a chamber with three cell doors, one on each of the other walls.

"Is this it?" Allura asked, distressed. "Where he'll stay?"

"Only for now." Lotor closed the door. "Cossack!" he shouted. "Are things ready?"

The cell door to their left opened, and Commander Cossack emerged, backing toward the center of the room. A robot followed him, hauling the bound and bruised Hunk out for inspection.

"Hunk!" Allura rushed to her friend's side, tears of relief welling up in her eyes. She immediately threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly, unmindful of the dirt and grime clinging to his skin but unable to help but notice the soiled bandages on his leg and the heavy shackles binding his arms and feet. "Oh thank Arus you're alive!"

"Thank Arus? Thank us, I think," Cossack quipped, folding his arms across his chest.

Lotor frowned at the commander. "Be quiet."

"Yes Sire."

Allura knelt by Hunk's side and touched the edge of his bandage. "Oh, you were hurt badly. Lotor, can you—?"

"It's being tended to." It was clear from Lotor's tone that he had chosen to do so only because he knew Allura wanted him cared for.

Hunk blinked at forced a weak smile at Allura. Though he had good reason to be angry with her, he was so relieved to see a friendly face that he did not ponder anything deeper than that. "Princess... good to see you."

"I'm so sorry Hunk." She hugged him tighter. "I hate that this has happened…"

"Ah… don't," he cut her off. While he felt no true malice toward Allura, he also did not want to hear apologies or promises that the Doomites with her would inevitably go back on and betray at the first opportunity. "You don't need to say anything, Princess. I know you do what you have to. Just like I did."

"I'm doing what I can, Hunk, I promise you that," she told him earnestly. "Please know that. I love you, love all my friends."

Hunk looked back at her with tired eyes. "Yeah, I know that. We all love you too."

The declarations of love, even that of friendship, irritated Lotor and led Cossack to roll his eyes. "So as you see," Lotor interrupted, placing a possessive hand on Allura's shoulder, "your friend is alive and well. I gave you my word that he would remain unharmed and so he has… and will."

Allura looked uncertainly from Hunk to Cossack, acting as her friend's jailer, and then to Lotor. "Yes. And you'll care for his wound? You won't leave him here will you? In this awful cell? I know what you told me before, Lotor, but there's got to be some way…"

Lotor waved his hand dismissively to assuage her concerns. "Cossack has that covered. Don't you, Cossack?"

The commander nodded and smiled at her, which did not do all that much to reassure Allura, and filled Hunk with a new sense of dread. "Sure do," Cossack said. "Being that we got to keep this low profile, your pal here's gonna get a whole new identity and cushy digs. As far as everyone outside this room is concerned, he's dead, so there's no problem, and he gets a new life. You actually made out decent, Chunky."

"His name is Hunk," Allura insisted with a frown, rising to her feet beside Lotor. "And you'll treat him with respect."

Cossack bristled. Although he was used to paying lip service to royalty, it chafed at him to have the teenage princess of Arus, who was until recently their enemy, speak that way to him and be unable to put her in her place. "I'll do my best to remember, Princess." He went just light enough on the sarcasm to keep him out of trouble with Lotor.

Meanwhile, Hunk let out an incredulous snort. "Don't expect much, he's not the brightest bulb in Doom's box."

A second later, a pointed boot connected with Hunk's backside just out of Allura's view, who fortunately for Cossack was distracted away from the sight by Lotor, who in turn sneered down at Hunk. "You may have a point, but Cossack isn't the one insulting those in control of his fate. Incidentally, you're being given to Cossack as his sla—ward. It's up to him what happens to you."

Grinding the pointy toe in Hunk's rear end a bit before pulling it back to straighten his posture, Cossack then said to Allura, "Like I said, he'll be taken care of. You got my word, just like Prince Lotor."

Allura lowered her head, not exactly happy with the situation, but mollified enough to not press the issue further while Hunk closed his eyes, far less comforted by the notion of being Cossack's "ward" than Allura was expected to be. A satisfied smile spread across Lotor's face, and he put his arm around Allura's shoulders. "Come, Allura. There's no need for us to stay here any longer. Of course you understand that it's best that you and Hunk not be in contact with one another after this, now that you know he's fine, lest anything happen to compromise our security."

The prince's words cemented the dread gathering in the pit of Hunk's gut, while Allura stopped in her tracks. "Wait. No contact? But…"

"If anyone intercepted your communications, our asses would all be on the line," Cossack said bluntly, and then added as if to amend the breach of language etiquette, "your highness."

"But how will I know that he's still fine a week from now, a month, a year?" Allura pressed.

Lotor frowned at Allura's still obvious distrust of him. "We can see to it that you're kept informed that he's fine."

The princess was not fully swayed. "Regularly."

"Fine," Lotor agreed, his irritation becoming more evident. "That's not a problem, is it Cossack?"

"No, Sire."

Lotor eyed Allura expectantly. "Is that good enough for you?"

The sharpness of his tone made her feel put on the spot. "Yes," she said uncertainly, and looked to Hunk with a contrite expression. "I'm sorry Hunk… I—"

"Like I said, Princess, you do what you have to." The former yellow lion pilot then looked away, unable to stand the look on Allura's face any longer. He did not want to be angry with her, given their history of friendship and the kind of person he knew her to be in her heart, but with each passing moment it was becoming harder and harder to not hold the foolish decisions she had made that brought them all to where they were now against her. "Tell Pidge when you see him back on Arus that I wish the best for the little guy and the others, and I hope I see them again someday."

"I will," Allura promised, and then turned to Lotor. "Before we leave, Lotor, I need to know something else. What I saw, what your father and the Drule Empire and the whole Galaxy Alliance saw, Hunk's execution…" Her voice faltered as she said the words, still shamed by her part in the charade, "if it wasn't Hunk that died, who did? It didn't look fake. I mean, I believed it was real…"

"A nobody. A slave," Lotor told her. "One that bore an unfortunate resemblance to your friend."

When he heard that someone else had been killed in his place, Hunk grimaced. Though he certainly did not want to die, it was little comfort to know that he had been spared just so someone else could be slaughtered instead. Allura meanwhile gasped, horrified. "You killed an innocent man?"

"Would you rather I broke my word to you and killed him instead?" Lotor asked incredulously.

"I'd rather you didn't kill anyone!"

"Besides, he wasn't innocent," Cossack interjected. "He had it coming."

Allura frowned at the commander. "What did he do?"

Cossack motioned for the robot that had brought Hunk out to take him back to his cell as he answered Allura. "He defiled one of my slave girls."

"You mean he raped her?" she questioned, and then added, surprised, "You care about things like that with your slaves?"

Stifling a snort of laughter both at the notion that the naïve Arusian had apparently never considered that an "evil" Doomite could actually value slave property and at the actual truth of the situation, Cossack went on to explain. "Nah, he screwed her; she's not discriminating enough to say no. But the loser gave her a hell of a case of the crabs so he had punishment coming anyway. It was just convenient that it worked out he looked kinda like Hunk."

Aghast, Allura recoiled, immediately trying to banish unwanted images of Cossack forcing some hapless servant girl into his bed from her mind. "I'm not going to even ask how you'd find out such a thing."

Cossack meanwhile raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying you_ don't_ make it a point to find out if the servants that clean your toilet aren't carrying anything contagious? Talk about putting your ass on the line!"

To that Allura's only response was a disgusted noise, while Lotor rolled his eyes at Cossack's complete lack of social decorum. "I think that we've gone over everything that needs to be said. It's been quite an exhausting day for all of us. Allura, let's retire to my chambers." Before she could object, the prince then ushered her out, leaving Cossack alone with Hunk and the robot, who had taken the former yellow lion pilot back into his cell.

When Cossack came into the cell, Hunk glowered at him. "Your 'ward' huh? Nice way to say 'slave' if I ever heard one."

"Well what do you know, you are smarter than you look!" Cossack quipped back in response. "That's good, maybe having a few brains'll get you out of the nastier jobs that you could get stuck with where you're going."

"Where I'm going?" Hunk repeated. Although Lotor and Cossack had told Allura he would not remain there, Hunk did not believe a word out of either of their mouths, so he was mildly surprised to hear Cossack say that he was indeed going elsewhere.

"Yeah." The commander flashed him an insincere fanged smile. "I know you're disappointed that you won't be in my personal collection of servants, but like we said out there, if you put two and two together, you'd figure out that someone would notice who you really were before long if you stayed around here. Not to mention, if you managed to catch up with your pal the princess, you two might hatch some stupid escape plot which would be a whole heap of trouble that I don't want to deal with. So like your look-alike crab-man, you gotta go."

Hunk flexed in his chains, forgetting his wounded leg for a moment. He then grimaced and groaned when a bolt of pain reminded him that he was overdue for his next dose of painkiller. "Where are you taking me?"

"Don't you worry about that, Chunky. The ride's on me. In fact, you won't remember much of it anyway."

"What do you mean?" Hunk asked, just as Cossack motioned to the robot behind him. When he turned around to see what was happening, Hunk looked up just in time to see a metallic arm come down on his head, knocking him to the ground in a fresh wave of pain.

As he lay on the floor trying to get his bearings, Hunk then overheard Cossack tell the robot, "Now shoot him up with a knockout dose of Delbinium, bag him, and get him into my cargo hold."

**Continued**


	3. Chapter 3

Necessary Masque

Part Three

By Cheezey

When the battle-scarred red lion and tiger fighter arrived back on Pollux, the hour was late. Romelle, Sven, and Keith had all been getting some much-needed rest, while Niyte oversaw rescue efforts and communications that Romelle had delegated to him. There was no news yet of any change in Prince Bandor's condition, and the two space explorers and the princess had been so tired when a reasonable point to rest came that they had all fallen asleep within moments of hitting a soft surface. It had only been a few hours since then when the red lion and tiger fighter showed up, but Niyte sent a soldier to rouse them, as he had been ordered should any significant news from them come. The three of them, still groggy, gathered with Niyte in front of the two felinoid ships as Lance and Stride disembarked. The other survivor climbed out of his escape pod in the red lion's jaws and joined them.

"Lance!" Keith exclaimed, heading to his equally weary-looking friend's side. "You look like hell."

"I feel like it," he said darkly. "I can't believe those bastards did that…" He closed his eyes, fighting back a wave of emotion. "We tried to make it there on time, but we were too late." He looked at Keith, Sven, and Romelle. "God, I'm sorry."

Romelle gave him a sympathetic hug. "You aren't the one that has to be sorry, Lance. Lotor is. And Allura," she added bitterly.

Keith frowned at Romelle's harsh words for the other princess, but he did not argue them. He saw no point, especially since there was some truth in what she said, even though what had happened was something Allura never would have intended.

"We did our best," a somber Stride went on to say. "We were on our way there when they killed him. We and the others sought to avenge him, but the mission failed."

"The others?" Sven said, looking between the two of them.

"They didn't make it either," Lance said flatly. "The three of us are the only ones that made it." He gestured to Stride and the other survivor. "Me and red lion may be what's left of Voltron, but we don't hold a candle to him, that's for sure. We didn't even dish out all that much damage to them either. They were waiting for us."

"Can't say I'm surprised at that. I'm sure they were expecting a rescue attempt," Keith said with a sigh.

"Regardless Lance, it's better that a part of Voltron is keeping up the fight than none at all," Captain Niyte offered. "Anyone that stands up to Zarkon and his tyranny has the respect and support of the Galaxy Alliance and its worlds. You and your friends are heroes, living and dead."

"Absolutely," Romelle agreed. "And you'll always be welcome here on Pollux." She let out a sad sigh and looked up at the night stars. "I know it's nothing compared to what he gave for us, but I'm going to see to it that a memorial to Hunk is erected here when we get things rebuilt, and to your friends who went to Doom to try and set things right."

Niyte added, "The Galaxy Alliance feels similarly. My superiors told me that when a memorial is held, I'm to dignify him with special honors on their behalf, as a member of the Voltron Force and war hero."

"I don't know what we'd do without the Alliance's support," Romelle said gratefully. "Thank you."

Stride straightened and put a hand on the sword at his side. "Your friend will not go unavenged. We'll find a way to settle the score with Zarkon and Lotor."

"Damn right we will," Lance agreed, the fight and fire back in his tone. "And we're not going to let them take Pollux."

Sven frowned and glanced up at the sky, and then at the rubble of the former proud castle. "Which I'm sure they'll be back to try before too long."

"The Alliance already has battleships being sent this way for your protection," Niyte told them. "Pollux is on the highest level of threat warning right now, and they're putting as many resources as they can toward keeping it defended, especially given the loss of Voltron. We should be able to keep you reasonably safe while you rebuild your defenses."

Keith looked at the red lion. "The red lion looks like it can still put up a good fight too." He turned to Stride. "What about your ship?"

"The tiger fighter is fine. Fuel and minor repairs are all it needs."

"Then you'll have them," Romelle assured, and turned to Niyte. "Can you help them with that?"

The captain nodded. "Of course, Princess. Anything you need, just ask."

"Thank you. Since you bring it up, there is one other thing I would like to ask the Alliance, on behalf of Pollux." She took a steadying breath while the others faced her, waiting to hear what was on her mind. "I've done some thinking since all of this happened. These attacks happened for one reason—the Voltron Force bringing the red lion here because Lance wouldn't turn it over to Doom."

"To Allura," Keith corrected her gently. "Not Doom."

Romelle frowned. "She's married to Lotor. You can't separate them," she argued before continuing. "Part of the agreement to be a part of the Galaxy Alliance is to remain at peace with your allies. Arus violated that when Lotor came to take that lion on behalf of Arus."

"Allura didn't put him up to that, Princess. You know she wouldn't," Keith insisted.

"There was a time when I'd have said I know she'd never have anything to do with Lotor either, but I was wrong," she snapped back, angry and hurt. "I don't like this any more than you do. I loved Allura like she was my own sister. I trusted her and respected her!" Tears filled Romelle's eyes. "But she betrayed us. When she married Lotor, when she put him above the welfare of everyone in the Alliance, on the innocent worlds that he's now got the means to attack now that Voltron can't defend them…"

Keith looked away. "She didn't give Lotor the lions. He hasn't used the black, green, or yellow lions to attack anyone."

Romelle's scowl deepened. "She also didn't give us the means to defend ourselves from her husband by allowing you to use them to help us. She didn't stop him from coming after Lance and his lion, and she didn't even stop him from murdering Hunk. How can you defend her?" Her words ended on an angry sob, which Sven sought to ease by putting his arm around her shoulder.

Letting out a weary sigh, Keith tried to find the words to counter Romelle's argument, but found none. It was hard enough to reconcile in his own mind what had happened to Hunk at the hands of the man Allura willingly married, what had happened to all of them since the ill-advised union, to the Allura he knew in his heart to be a kind and gentle person. It was even harder when he had to hear someone else put the arguments against her into impassioned words with the ring of truth. "I don't want to fight with you, Romelle. We're on the same side." He looked over at the silhouettes of the red lion and tiger fighter in the moonlight. "I said I support Pollux and the Alliance and I meant it. Whatever you decide, I'm with you and the Voltron Force." _Or what's left of it,_ he thought wistfully, as memories of Allura, Hunk, and Pidge—who he wondered about how he must be faring once he heard the news about Hunk—came back to him.

"We know you are, Keith," Sven said, giving Romelle's shoulder a squeeze and his friend a smile in an effort to smooth things over. "This is hard on everyone."

"Which is why we gotta set things as right as we can," Lance agreed.

Niyte nodded, also in agreement. "There's a strong case for having Arus removed from the Alliance for breaching their peace agreement. If there's sufficient evidence that Princess Allura condones attacks on fellow Alliance worlds, either through direct orders to or deliberate inaction against her husband, I can't imagine the Alliance being willing to keep Arus."

Stride frowned. "The Arusian people are the ones that will feel the pain of that the most."

"They have Lotor and their lions to defend them," Romelle said bitterly. "Hopefully Allura at least had the sense to demand that much for her people."

"I hope so too," Keith said. He thought again of his friends on Arus and in the Castle of Lions.

"As do I," Stride said. "I knew King Alfor and his family well. It would grieve him greatly to see devastation come to his world by the actions of his own flesh and blood." He paused to think for a moment. "Perhaps I could go to Arus and speak to Queen Orla—the princess' aunt. I don't know her as well as I did Alfor and his wife, but I've met her and she was a respectable and honorable woman. I'm sure I could find out from her how the people of Arus are being treated, and if your friends, such as the green lion pilot that stayed there, are all right."

Keith's dark eyes lit up with a bit of optimism. "That would be great."

"Yeah, definitely. Especially considering we're banned from the planet by Lotor," Lance said.

"What about you?" Sven asked the red lion pilot. "Are you staying here with us?"

Lance resumed a more somber demeanor. "I don't know. I want to be able to defend you guys if you need me, but I also make you more of a target since Lotor wants this lion so badly. And now that the GA is here, I wonder if I shouldn't be doing more while I lay low and do something to make sure the lion stays in prime shape."

Romelle eyed him questioningly. "What do you mean?"

"The red lion's home is a volcano on Arus. The lava recharges it. I need to find somewhere hot for it to rest now that it can't go back to Arus. Its power is still good, but I don't know for how long. I was thinking of going back to talk to Marianne and going from there to figure out how to keep the red lion going, or even make it stronger, now that it's running alone without the others."

"That's not a bad idea," Keith agreed. "We never really put it to the test how long the lions would last without resting in their original places. And that time the lake dried up, it didn't take long for the blue lion to run down at all."

"That's what I thought too," Lance said with a nod. "I'm glad you guys are on board with it."

Niyte looked toward his own ship thoughtfully. "We should be able to manage without the red lion for a time with the reinforcements I've called in."

"I think it's a good idea, Lance," Sven also agreed. "Good luck."

"Be safe. And please keep in touch with us," Romelle urged him.

Lance smiled back at his friends, feeling the first hint of hope that he had since he had first heard the news of Hunk's demise. "Will do."

* * *

Lotor ended the silence that had fallen between him and Allura on their way back to his suite in Castle Doom as soon as he closed the heavy doors behind him. "What is it, Allura?" he demanded, commanding her attention with his tone. "You haven't said a word."

"Honestly, I don't know what to say," she replied, her tone quiet and distant.

"'I'm sorry' might be a nice start," he retorted with heavy sarcasm.

The princess' eyes went wide with shock and a bit of indignant pride. "What?"

"For not trusting me. For jumping to the worst conclusions about me. For doubting my love when I prove it over and over again, Allura. I don't know what it takes to satisfy you. Even when I do what you ask, and put myself on the line for you…"

She sighed. "If you hadn't attacked Pollux, you wouldn't have had to put yourself or me or Hunk on the line to begin with."

"I told you that we had to retaliate after Bandor balked us," an increasingly exasperated Lotor replied. "You said when I left for that mission that you understood that."

"You said you'd see to it that no one innocent was hurt and that the attack wouldn't be 'unreasonable'!" she argued back, her voice rising with emotion. "Tell me how destroying Castle Pollux, killing so many people, and almost killing Bandor isn't unreasonable!"

Lotor took hold of his bedpost and squeezed it to absorb his pent up frustration so he would not lash out at the woman he was trying so desperately to appease. It galled him to do so, and a part of him felt weak for letting a mere human princess dictate his actions so. Fortunately for Allura, his love won out over his ego, although the battle was close and constant, it seemed. "Prince Bandor and his guardsmen and soldiers aren't 'innocents', they're military casualties. I know they're your friends, but _they _are the antagonists. They refused to hand over the lion or Lance, and they balked our peaceful attempts to communicate. I kept my word for the precious 'innocent' you hold so dear—no towns or villages were attacked, and the orders were out for the soldiers to not shoot at any civilian that did not shoot first." He left out that such orders were carried down the chain of command and that he did not follow up to see if his subordinate officers enforced them. That was not his problem.

Allura's expression softened a bit, although a disapproving look remained in her eyes. "But why were you so brutal? Why did you have to destroy the castle?"

"You obviously have little understanding of Drule Empire protocol." He turned away to pour himself a goblet of wine from the flask slaves had previously made ready in his room.

The condescending response caught Allura off guard. "I—well—I know the Drules are more aggressive than Alliance worlds are, but—"

He faced her with a bold look, and then took a drink from his goblet. "That's putting it mildly." He gestured for Allura to help herself to the wine, but she shook her head in refusal. He then took another drink and continued to explain. "Weakness is not tolerated in any way, shape, or form by a Drule kingdom ruler. Anything less than what we did to Pollux would have been construed as a slap on the wrist, a signal to other worlds that we're willing to back down to worlds that try to take what is ours. Making the ramifications of defying us clear is the only way to keep the respect of the other Drule rulers. Once you show weakness," Lotor stared down at her intensely, "they get the idea that if an enemy world can intimidate you, so can they. And you don't want them getting that idea. Not unless you want to be treated like a conquered world yourself—which you might very well be, for an ambitious ruler looking to usurp a kingdom. The Council will back up whoever is most powerful and who will net them the most benefit. Don't _ever _think otherwise of any of your peer rulers in the Empire."

"I see." She looked away, her eye catching the empty goblet beside the flask that her husband was already refilling. She wondered if something in the drink calmed him, or it was the pleasure of the taste that brought him relief. Allura herself did not want any; when she consumed alcohol it was in small quantities. She had been brought up that a proper lady of royal bearing stopped at the first sense of being "tipsy" as Nanny called it, lest she lose self-control and act in an unbecoming way or grow ill.

"Do you? Do you understand, Allura?" Lotor's golden eyes met hers with an impatient and was it—hurt?—need for an answer.

As she looked back to him, Allura found herself empathizing on some level with Lotor. Although she could not fathom the way he thought and acted, she could certainly identify with being placed in a hard position that forced her hand into difficult, even dangerous, decisions. "Yes," she said earnestly. "I won't lie and tell you that I approve of what you did… but I understand why you did it. Just please, please remember how much my friends mean to me. Always. If there's any way…"

"I'll try to remember your feelings and spare them, Allura, you have my word on that," Lotor vowed, taking a step closer to her. "Hurting you hurts me as well."

She found herself drawn into his intense gaze as he set his goblet down and drew her close. She did not fight the embrace, but she did not know what to say either, so she only murmured his name. "Oh, Lotor."

The prince took it as encouragement and stroked her hair, tied in a neat bun at the back of her head, before tipping her chin up toward his face for a kiss.

To his dismay, she withdrew and turned away. "I don't think I'm ready for this."

Lotor frowned. "Not ready? For the loving kiss of your husband?"

"This isn't the right time for something like this," she protested.

"You talk as though we haven't been intimate and consummated our marriage, Allura." Lotor released her from his embrace but not his gaze. "Surely you can't be nervous about what you've already experienced and enjoyed as my wife?"

Sighing, she stepped back and undid her hair from the bun, his recent touch reminding her that it would feel more relaxing to take it down, especially in the cool stone chamber in which they were going to spend the night. "It's not that, not exactly," she explained. "It just doesn't feel right after everything that happened today, to do… that. Expressions of love between a husband and wife should be special moments."

Dismayed at the rebuff, Lotor's frown deepened. "You think that I would not treat you as though you were special, or that it would be meaningless to me?" He paused. "Or are you saying it's meaningless to you?"

"That isn't what I'm saying at all!" Allura protested. Her face flushed as she searched for polite words to discuss the personal subject, one that she was used to viewing as something romantic and far off in her future, free of complications. "I just meant that things like that should be for special times, when we want to celebrate our love. Not when we've just gotten finished talking about the kind of things that've happened the last couple of days."

"Oh," Lotor said flatly. "Then what about our wedding night, Allura? Surely the jailbreak and rescue was far from your romantic ideal?"

"It was our wedding night," she said, her cheeks reddening further. "We were supposed to—"

"You gave yourself to me out of obligation," he said stonily. "Romantic indeed."

Allura bit her lip. "You make it sound so cold, Lotor. It's not like you forced me to—to consummate our marriage. I did it willingly." She paused and then added, "And I enjoyed it."

"Of course you did," Lotor replied with an air of arrogance, and looked at his bride with mixed emotion. She frustrated him so terribly. While he wanted her love more than anything and it angered him to hear that she had given herself to him in bed more out of duty than lust, it still gave the part of him so eager for her affection hope to hear her say that it had not been something she regretted. "You could enjoy many more nights, including tonight, if you'd open your mind beyond your storybook romance ideals."

"What?"

He took her by the hand and drew her into his arms again. "What I mean, Allura, is that if you'd be willing to cast aside these pre-conceived notions that your guardians have given you about what goes on between a man and his wife, that you'd realize that giving one another pleasure and enjoying affection isn't something that needs to wait for the ideal moment, or some special occasion. There's no shame in desiring my touch even if I made you angry." He traced his finger along the side of her cheek. "Pleasure is a gift I'm willing to give you whenever you want it."

"I—" Lotor cut her off with a firm but tender kiss. That time she did not push him away, and found herself enjoying his strong embrace and the faint taste of wine imparted by his lips.

"Having you tonight, having you love me after all we went through to get this far, making love to you would put a perfect end on this otherwise draining day," Lotor whispered, smoothing his hands along the outline of her hips, fingers brushing ever-so-slightly against her buttocks.

Allura felt a terrible conflict of desire for the man holding her so delightfully, who had done so many things she found unconscionable, but who also seemed to love her with a depth and passion she was only beginning to comprehend. The more he touched her, the more he murmured affection to her and caressed her in that embrace, the more she wanted to yield to him, to lay with him on that plush bed and have him do those delicious things he had done and make her feel the way he had made her feel on their wedding night.

"Lotor," she whispered. Her breath caught as he simultaneously kissed the tip of her ear and kneaded her rump in a way that made her both blush and burn with desire.

She felt his hips grind against hers, a noticeable bulge in his clothing that teased her with what it represented, and met his eyes as he studied her face intently. "Allura, I only want you tonight if you want me. Tell me you want me to make love to you, and I'll revere you, make you feel like the beautiful goddess that you are." His fingers then tightened around her upper arms where they had stopped in their caresses. "But if you truly don't want me tonight, say so, and I'll slake my lust with a slave and leave you in peace."

The passion of his words at first enticed her, and then struck her with force in their brutal honesty. She supposed she was getting what she asked for by demanding he be honest with her, and the notion of taking a slave if she said no was still fidelity in his eyes. It was an odd concept to her, but she supposed it made sense in the same way most of Lotor's twisted logic did. His last statement did not come without a pang of jealousy, either, and it made her realize that she was coming to not only truly care—she would not call it _love_ yet—for Lotor, but genuinely desire him. The thought shamed her a bit as she imagined Nanny and Coran's disapproval, but not enough to make her deny it. She _did_ want Lotor, even though by all rights she should not. _Arus help me, I do._

"Yes, Lotor," she told him, blue eyes looking deeply into his alien ones. She leaned closer.

Lotor smiled. "Say it then, Allura. Tell me that you want me. That you desire me. That you want me to love you like your adoring husband." _That you want me to make you cry my name in pleasure all night._ He left the last bit unsaid, but thought it, and smiled just a bit wider as he did.

Trembling, Allura said, "I do want you, Lotor."

"And you'll have me," the smug Lotor replied, and pulled her onto the bed to make good on his word.

* * *

While Lotor and Allura enjoyed the luxury of sleeping in the following morning, Cossack the Terrible did not share the same fortune. The commander was awakened by a most unwelcome cold and wet sensation splattering upon his face.

"What the—?" He sat bolt upright, his initial shock from being jolted from a pleasant rest changing to an aggravated scowl as he heard a childish giggle to his left. He wiped his fingers across his face and glowered in the direction of his unwanted wake-up caller, his wife's five-year-old grandson Prestus, who was brandishing a water gun. "What's the big idea, kid?"

The boy's laughter died to a snicker. "You jumped like a space mouse."

"And you're gonna flail like one in a trap if you ever do something like that again and I get a hold of you!" the grumpy Cossack retorted, rising to his feet to stare his wife's grand-spawn down. The commander did not look nearly as imposing as he would have liked to imagine, wearing nothing but his lucky boxers and waving his fist at the boy, but Prestus skittered back toward the door nonetheless.

"Yeah, you better run!" Cossack shouted after him, waving his fist. He picked up his helmet off the nightstand and put it on. "You don't screw with Cossack the Terrible before coffee, kid!"

That proved enough to startle Prestus into a full retreat, and without even a squeak of apology, the boy and his water weapon fled the suite. "Brat," Cossack muttered under his breath. Although normally he would have found such a prank amusing, the key factors of it being him that was the victim and it being far too early to be up the morning after a celebration colored his opinion heavily. He yawned, began hunting for his clothes, and sighed. "Guess I ought to be up anyway."

As he dressed, Cossack mulled over his plans for the day, that being to tie up the final loose end of Lotor's deception before heading back to Castle Doom. He headed downstairs to say goodbye to Kuryaki, who it seemed had risen sometime before him. As it turned out he had barely spent any time with her the previous evening; the celebratory dinner he had arrived at later than expected due to Lotor's orders went on until well after midnight, and although he had enjoyed the fine food and drink, she had been interested in little else than sleep by the time they turned in.

Still, he had not expected the frosty reception he received from her when he met up with her in the room where they normally took breakfast. Kuryaki eyed him with a stern look of disapproval when he approached. "Cossack."

"Hey," he responded, frowning as he took note of her expression and tone. "What's wrong?"

"That was uncalled for."

He blinked as he tried to figure out what she was talking about. "Huh?"

Kuryaki took a few steps closer. "Prestus. There was no reason on Doom to rattle him like that! The poor boy was nearly white with fear when he came to me!"

"What?" the puzzled Cossack said, until he realized that the kid must have gone crying to her after he yelled at him. "Yeesh, I only told him not to mess with me, and believe me, he had it coming. He shot me in the face with a water gun while I was asleep! Am I supposed to think that's cute?"

"No, but there's no need to go overboard with him. He _is_ only five."

Cossack rolled his eyes. "Five's old enough to know not to piss off guys four times your size. And it's not like I said I'd gut and disembowel him. Lighten up." _If he's that much of a pansy, he's got more problems than me anyway, _he thought irritably.

"That's not how he painted it, but perhaps imagination did overwhelm him," Kuryaki conceded, and then added on a sterner note, "Though I would appreciate you not chasing him into the west wing in the future. You know I don't like anyone in there without my supervision."

That time Cossack mirrored his wife's frown, although his was more confused than anything else. He picked up a breakfast pastry and began to munch. "The west wing? Baby, what are you talking about? I just chased him out of the bedroom. I wasn't anywhere near the west wing." The west wing was the part of the manor that held the rooms that had once belonged to Yurak, and just as Kuryaki still clung bitterly to the memory of her fallen son, she was also a hawk-like caretaker of that part of the Tonorm'oith estate house.

The two of them eyed each other in silence for a moment, until Kuryaki broke it with a dismissive wave. "Well he told me that the commander chased him out of the hall from behind the Athgar statue and threatened him. I presume that would be you, being the only commander in the house and all, unless your Terrorberbil has taken up a full command?" The robear servant she named was a Berbil that catered to Cossack's needs when he was at the house. It wore a fleet helmet and had been dubbed the "Terrorberbil" in fun. "And the only full size Athgar icon is in the west wing," she continued. "It belonged to Sevakor and Yurak kept it after he passed."

Cossack gave a shrug, irritated by Kuryaki's insistence that he had upset her precious Prestus in a place he had not even been. "Well I don't know what the kid told you, but I wasn't there. All I did was holler at him and tell him he should've run. I didn't think he'd wet himself over that. Maybe he got confused when he was crying to you," he groused and then added, "and maybe you ought to talk to your daughter about her kid being such a mama's boy if that freaked him out so badly."

"I don't think Sekavi shelters him that much. Regardless, I don't want him in the west wing unsupervised," she said with a note of finality, and then sighed. "Just please refrain from threatening the lives of the next generation in the future. I understand children have their moments, but really, the threat of a good whipping works wonders on both slaves and children. No need to go overboard."

"Yes dear." His response was as sarcastic as it was conciliatory, as it was clear that her mind was made up and arguing with her would only result in him continuing to get griped at.

"Thank you." Kuryaki offered him a smile of truce, and then looked him over. "You're in uniform. Are you off to Castle Doom again so soon?"

Cossack nodded. "Got a few things to take care of, yeah. And I don't know how soon they're going to want us to gear up for a retaliation on Pollux."

His response disappointed her. "I thought you said last night you'd have a few days off, that Prince Lotor promised you himself?"

"Yeah, but you know how the royals operate. Everything's contingent upon everything else." He smiled enough to show the tips of his fangs. "Shouldn't be more than a week or so."

"Good. I hope to see you then." She leaned close and kissed him on the cheek, which mildly disappointed him.

"Aw, that's it? After I got to parade the dead body of a Voltron Force pilot around town? How about a real kiss?" He then pulled her close and planted a dramatic smooch on her lips before she had a chance to answer. Afterward she smoothed down her dress and bade him a pleasant goodbye, and shortly thereafter Cossack was out at his transport craft, the irritation of his morning already put behind him. He kicked the back end of the craft loudly before he boarded, chortling at a squirming and mumbling mass tied up in a tarp in the back as he came in. "Ah, be happy that I didn't stick you in the trunk with the junk, Hunk!" he greeted his secret charge cheerfully, and then snickered at his own wit. "Hey, that rhymed!"

He powered on the engines and then went over to give the sack a personal kick, which responded with a louder and more aggravated grunt. It was all Hunk could do through the binds and gag he wore, especially in the dark and still feeling the last of the effects of the painkillers he had been given to both manage the pain of his leg and to sedate him for easy transport.

"I ought to make you work off the lazon mileage your fat ass is causing on my transport. But I guess they'll get it out of you where you're going," Cossack said as he sat in the pilot seat and took off. It was only a short ride to their ultimate destination, a palatial but secluded estate in the heart of planet Doom's only fertile agricultural region near its equator. The manor and its gardens were nestled amidst Doom grape fields as far as the eye could see all around, and the world's cloudy sky was brighter there than in it was in the higher rocky ground to the north where Castle Doom stood. "Welcome to your new home," Cossack told the trussed-up Voltron pilot after they touched down. "Now before I introduce you to your new masters, I'm gonna go over a few things with you. First of all, make sure you understand me and understand me good." He prodded Hunk's side with the pointy toe of his boot in a not-so-gentle manner to drive the point home. "We both know you're only here because Princess Allura wants you kept alive and safe, but don't think that this far from Castle Doom that gives you any kind of license to act up or cause trouble. Because if you do anything to these fine people, you're going to find out just how far Pinky's influence _doesn't_ reach. We faked your death; don't think we can't fake your life too." He kicked him again. "Got it?"

When no response other than a muffled groan came from the sack, Cossack continued. "Good. Now I better not hear any reports that you're giving your new masters trouble, slave, and believe me, I _will _find out if you do. And it goes without saying that you'll be sorry." He opened the door of the craft and proceeded to drag the heavy bundle that was Hunk out. "Ugh. I hope the hard labor in the grape fields takes a few pounds off you. I thought dead weight was a pain in the ass; live is worse."

"Cossack!" a familiar feminine voice greeted him with enthusiasm. "Oh my Terrible Terror, what a nice surprise!"

Once he reached the bottom of the ramp Cossack released Hunk and smiled warmly at the woman who greeted him, Lady Visycka of house Aldar'ach. "Hey Mom! Good to see you!"

Visycka drew her eldest son into a hug and then let him go, peering curiously at the oddly shaped and squirming sack he had brought with him. "And what is this?"

"A present." He grinned. "For you and Dad and the rest of the house, courtesy of your son the fleet commander. A token of Doom's recent victory!"

"It's moving," she observed. "Something from Pollux?"

Cossack bent over and untied the drawstring binding the tarp, allowing it to fall down around Hunk's bulk. The former yellow lion pilot was still bound and gagged, and obviously none too pleased even if he did welcome the breath of fresh, albeit humid and hot, air. "Better," Cossack went on to explain, presenting Hunk like an auctioneer would a prime parcel for sale. "A strong slave. But not just any slave, one with unique humor value." Visycka raised an eyebrow at that, rightfully wary of what her son considered humorous, but allowed him to continue. Cossack leaned closer to his mother and said with a smirk, "He thinks he's that dead Voltron Force pilot we executed yesterday. We caught him on Pollux, and he's been going on to other slaves and us and anyone that'll listen that he's the _real _yellow lion pilot, like we'd be dumb enough to mix up someone who'd been a pain in our asses for years or something with some stupid Pollux castle guard. Totally nuts, but funny." The commander accentuated his tale with a "cuckoo" finger gesture. "I figured you and Dad could not only use him in the fields, but for entertaining. I'll give him credit, for a screwball he talks a good game; listen to him long enough and he weaves a tale of bullshit so good you might almost believe it." He chuckled. "But of course he's not, no matter how much he wants to think he is. And with him at your parties, you'll be a trend-setter in the Drule Empire with your own personal Voltron Clown."

Visycka laughed lightly and looked over her new acquisition, who was astonished that Cossack not only fabricated such a bold lie, but that it was readily believed as well. "Amusing indeed," the Doom woman said. "You do have your father's sense of humor, don't you? Good thing you got your looks from _my _side at least." She smirked and then bent over to examine Hunk more closely, pinching his arm as she did so, eliciting a resentful glower from him. "Strong human though. He'll be good in the fields. What's his name?"

"He won't answer to anything but 'Hunk', though he might turn around if you call him 'fatso' or something else. No idea what his real name is—the slaves just called him by the dead pilot's name. I think he might've convinced one or two of 'em he was the real thing." He shook his head. "Not too bright over there on Pollux."

"Well I hear all that ancestry is rather inbred in those humans anyway. Hopefully our prince will inject some much needed fresh strong blood into that shallow gene pool with his pretty little princess from Arus." Visycka shrugged. "As for 'Hunk' here, as long as he does what he's told, we can call him Frinky Fancypants for all I care." She motioned to the bandages on his leg. "What happened there? Permanent damage?"

Hunk let out increasingly more indignant mutters through his gag, although none of it was understandable to either of the Doomites, who ignored his attempts to speak anyway while Cossack answered his mother. "Nah. Just an accident. Like I said before, he's bonkers and takes this whole 'I'm the lost hero of the Voltron Force' bit way too seriously. That's kinda why I thought he'd be a good fit here with you and Dad, both the whole novelty of a nutty pilot thing and all the open space to keep him from doing anything too stupid. He's too funny to waste, but around too many slaves with rebellious thoughts he does start trouble and spreads his craziness. Like this one skinny guy started calling himself 'Didge' like that green lion pilot, but didn't even get his name right."

Nodding as she listened, Visycka said, "And the leg?"

"Oh yeah, right. When he heard that the real Hunk when we captured him got shot in the leg, this guy butted his leg up against a lazon unit to match it, like he was trying to feel his pain or something." The commander shook his head again. "Like I said, cra-zy!"

Visycka poked at Hunk's bandage, making him flinch, not so much out of pain but rather with anxiety for what awaited him in her care. "Can he work like that?"

"He can walk," Cossack assured her. "I just had him tied up like this for easy transport. I had medics keep an eye on it as soon as I earmarked him for you and Dad. Just keep him on Delbinium until it heals and in no time he'll be healthy as a Tyrusian horse. He'll probably eat like one too. That's one thing he really does have in common with that chunky pilot."

Hunk grumbled something unflattering at Cossack through the gag while Visycka nodded in acknowledgment. "Very well. There's plenty of light duty he can perform around the manor until it's healed up. The maids will like a strong-shouldered brute like this when it comes time to clean under the sofas." She patted him on the back like one would a pet and then motioned to a servant woman that stood nearby. "Nadina!"

"Yes Mistress?" The slave, a tanned human past her middle age with salt-and-pepper hair tied into a tight bun, bowed before Visycka.

"Take our new slave here inside and show him to the slave quarters. Find Brul and have him assist him today and show him the ropes. He's injured, so give him Delbinium if he complains of pain. Let me know if he's rebellious and I'll have Roqis handle it," Visycka ordered, naming first one of her more trusted domestic house slaves and then their disciplinarian. Roqis was a Doomite commoner, a particularly savage one that was hired help rather than a slave, and therefore was feared by the other workers of the household.

Nadina nodded obediently. "Yes, Mistress." She took Hunk's still-bound hands and gave them a tug. "Come along now. There's no use being stubborn."

"Nadina's a smart one, Hunk," Visycka told her new slave pointedly. "You'd be wise to listen to her. Behave, and you'll avoid lashings or worse, and you might even get a reward. Act up, and the thunder of Elichi himself will come down on you."

Stubbornly Hunk remained where he sat on the ground, despite Nadina tugging on him. Cossack did not appreciate his display of rebelliousness, even though he had expected it, and kicked him in the rump with the pointed toe of his boot. "I know you're not deaf, tubbo, and you're not that dumb, so get moving."

Visycka let out a sigh of impatience and grabbed Hunk's wrists, helping her weaker slave hoist Hunk unwillingly to his feet. "All right then, if you're going to be this way you can wear your binds and gag all the way to the slave quarters." She then brushed her hands together as if to wipe off the effort of the menial chore. "Take him away, Nadina, and see to it that he gets a bath. He's a bit ripe." She wrinkled her nose.

The servant gave an obedient nod and led the less than willing Hunk off. The defeated pilot cast an angry glare over his shoulders in the direction of Cossack and his new mistress. The commander found it amusing and grinned back. "Have a nice day!" he called back, giving a sarcastic wave. When Hunk then turned away, glowering in disgust and muttering curses at him through his gag, Cossack decided that even if Hunk did not—_especially_ if Hunk did not—he certainly would.

**The End**


End file.
